Ubuntu Weekly News: Issue #30

Thu Mar 8 01:55:33 GMT 2007

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 30 for the weeks
January 28th - Febuary 28th, 2007.
We're sorry for the delay in releasing this edition, some of our main
editors are not able to help out temporarily. We will be releasing
this issue with the updates on February, and start working on issue
#31 to make it weekly again.
Thank you for your patience!

== In This Issue ==

 * New Team: Ubuntu Scribes
 * Feisty Fawn Herd5 Released
 * No Beryl or Compiz for Feisty
 * Weekly Quiz Update
 * Changes in Feisty
 * Upcoming meetings and events
 * 6.06 & 6.10 updates and security notices
 * Bug Stats

== General Community News ==

=== KDE 3.5.6 Released ===

KDE 3.5.6 has been released and new features, bug fixes and
translations.  Packages are available for Kubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) and have
been uploaded to Feisty.

http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-356.php
http://dot.kde.org/

=== Feisty Fawn Herd5 Release ===

The third alpha Herd5 for Feisty has been released. Featuring a new
advanced partitioning tool, it is still in development. Please do not
install on production machines. Final Feisty release is scheduled for
April 2007. More on Feisty Herd5, screenshots and and download links
at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/herd5

=== Ubuntu Forums hits 2 million posts and gets upgraded ===

A few days ago ubuntuforums.org went past an amazing 2 million posts.
Due to an increasing user base on the forums, after a rocky week
Canonical has sent a RAM upgrade to the forums and should now be
smoother then ever. Big thank you to all the forum sysadmins who do an
amazing job!

=== Scribes Team Looks to Help Community with Meetings ===

The Scribes team had a great first meeting. The team discussed many
ideas to help the community to improve the meeting process. Chris
Oattes also shared his progress on a bot to help making summaries of
IRC meetings easier. The team was interested in learning about how the
community goes about their meeting process for various teams. You can
email ubuntu-scirbes at cjo20.net and let them know. The next team
meeting is scheduled for February 15th at 8pm UTC in #ubuntu-scribes.
You can find out more at ScribesTeam on wiki.

=== Calls for Ubuntu Book Feisty Update ===

Official Ubuntu Book recipes will be updated for Feisty. Interested in
contributing ? First check the OfficialUbuntuBookRecipes Wiki page for
already available recipes. Ready to write a new one ? Please mail your
freshly cooked recipe to Corey at corey.burger AT gmail AT com. If it
makes it into the new edition, you will get a free signed copy of the
book.

The deadline for submitting your work is Wednesday, 14th February, 2007.

Recommendations, terms and conditions here: http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/737

=== Ubucon, February 16, 2007 ===

The second UbuCon, an Ubuntu user and developer meeting will be held
at Google's New York City offices on February 16, 2007. The event will
be part an installfest, part a user group meeting, and part an
un-conference (schedule will be decided on the day of the conference).
You have to register (registration is free) to access the building.
For more informations, please read https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TheUbucon.

=== Feisty will not include Beryl or Compiz ===
According to Matt Zimmerman, "Ubuntu 7.04 will preserve the status quo
with respect to proprietary video drivers.  As in previous releases,
these drivers will be provided for the convenience of users who choose
to use them, but they will not be activated by default." This decision
was made at a Technical Board meeting which decided Compiz and Beryl
were not stable enough to be shipped. Once again, the discussion on
the mailing list says "However, some of the relevant software
necessary to implement this proposal is not yet considered mature
enough to deploy in the default Ubuntu configuration." Therefore,
composite will not enabled by default in Feisty but the Technical
Board has made in clear that they believe this technology will be
implemented in the near future.

=== New Members ===
The Community Council recently voted to grant membership to eight
contributors to the Ubuntu world. Congratulations to Sri Ramadoss
Mahalingam, Dan Buch, Toby Smithe, Tom Marble, Carlos Perello Marin,
Lionel Porcheron, Freddy Martinez, and Guy Van Sanden. Keep up the
good work!

== LoCo News ==

=== Georgia LoCo Team Meeting ===
The new Georgia LoCo is now holding regular meetings in
#ubuntu-georgia on FreeNode network at 15-19 UTC (1-5pm EST) on
Sundays. Please feel free to drop in to get help, help out, or just to
chat. You can find more information about the Georgia LoCo on our wiki
at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/GeorgiaUSTeam

== This Week's Quiz ==

This Week, the Quiz had 4 champions! We've never had such a thriller.
mc44, tsmithe, ryanakca and coNP all finished the game with the same
score, and not even a final round decided which of them would carry
off the prize. We decided to declare them all champions, and let
chance decide who would carry off the prize in a two-by-two
rock-paper-scissors contest. Even then, in the second round, ryanakca
and coNP both hit rock bottom three times in a row! (pun intended)
coNP's final draw of paper won him 3 Ubuntu, and 1 each Kubuntu and
Xubuntu laptop stickers.

|| '''Quizmaster''' || AlexandreVassalotti ||
|| '''Champions'''  || mc44, tsmithe, ryanakca and coNP ||
|| '''Sponsor'''   || JendaVancura ||
|| '''Prize'''  || 5 laptop stickers ||

Upcoming for next week:

|| '''Sponsor'''   || mc44 ||
|| '''Prize'''     || Ubuntu 6.10 DVD edition ||

More info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuTrivia

To participate in the quiz, join #ubuntu-trivia on irc.freenode.net on
Friday and/or Saturday UTC-nights - the topic will usually tell you
when the next quiz is scheduled.

For more info on prizes, donating, quizzes and giving quizzes see the
above link.

== Changes In Feisty ==

Twisted Words is a low level chat client. It was updated to version
0.3 to fully support XMPP and fixed bugs.

Twisted Names is a DNS protocol implementation with client and server.
The update release helped fixed a few bugs with TCP connections.

Diggler is a set of URL manipulation utilities for the Seamonkey and
Firefox's location bar. The latest changes include documentation
inculsion, changes to it's file directory and support for Firefox >
1.5

The latest package for gedit-plugins has been uploaded to universe.
Gedit-plugins is a set of plugins for the Gedit text editor. The
latest changes have bug fixes associated with the terminal and many
translations. Some languages that are included are French, England,
Polish and Dutch.

Bzr-GTK is a GTK+ front end for the Bazaar revision control system.
The latest release contains more work on the SmartServer, improvements
to dealing with branches via http (more robust range handling,
keepalive) and an extension to the help system to be able to deal with
topics that are not commands.

Pyqonsole is an X Window terminator emulator written in Python.  The
latest package was a minor update to the new python policy and closes
a few bug report.

Tepache is a code sketcher for Python that uses pygtk and glade.
Version 1.1-1 is the initial release of Tepache, so keep your eye on
this package, it should have more features as its development
progresses.

Twisted Lore is a documentation generator with built in support for
HTML and LaTeX. The update brings Twisted Lore to werison 0.3.0. This
update comes with a new upstream version, updated dependencies and
more.

Qpsmtpd is a flexible SMTP dameon that is useful for network-level
spam detection. The update added logging to the program, better
plugins support, and other minor fixes.

Postfix has been updated to version 2.3.7-1.  This is a maintenance
update to version 2.3.3-1 that was shipped with Edgy Eft.  The updates
to Feisty include a number of fixes to the Postfix implementation of
the Milter protocol that is new in Postfix 2.3.

Feisty includes a number of changes to provide SPF (Sender Policy
Framework) checking with Postfix.  SPF is the most deployed e-mail
domain forgery protection technology today and was codified by the
IETF in RFC 4408.  See http://www.openspf.org/ for more information.
Feisty will be the first Linux distribution to include everything
needed to do RFC 4408 compliant SPF checking.  The Python SPF library
has been updated to the latest release (python-spf 2.0.3).  A
companion Postfix policy server (python-policyd-spf) is also included
for a pure Python approach.  There is also a new Perl SPF library
(libmail-spf-perl) with a companion Postfix policy server
(postfix-policyd-spf-perl).

Sarg is a Squid Analysis Report Generator that allow you to view
"where" your users are going to on the Internet. Sarg generate reports
in html, with many fields, like: users, IP Addresses, bytes, sites and
times. Latest fixes repairs segmentation faults and alters Sarg's run
path.

SciPy is an open source library of scientific tools for Python. SciPy
includes modules for graphics and plotting, optimization, integration,
genetic algorithms, ODE solvers, and much more. The newest versions
makes the build independent of the python version, changes
dependances, and includes builds for multiple architectures.

Cyphesis-C++ is a game server from the WorldForge project. Multiple
users/clients can connect to it to play roleplaying games online. The
uploaded packages include a game server, a client control system, and
game data. Updates include build dependecies errors, and rebuilding
the package to depend on python 2.5.

Pax-utilso is a tool that is a security focused ELF file checker. It
can check ELF binary files and running processes for issues that might
be relevant when using ELF binaries along with PaX. The latest changes
make Pax-utils modifies the package to no longer need a patch.

poEdit is cross-platform gettext catalogs editor. It is built with
wxWidgets toolkit and can run on any platform supported by it . It
aims to provide more convenient approach to editing catalogs than
launching vi and editing the file by hand. Latest changes are bug
fixes that fix file loading, a shortcut bug on OS X, and file
referencing.

PloneCollectorNG is a Plone/Archetypes based bugtracking system and
framework. The lastest update changes dependencies to fix bugs.

Postgresql 7.4 is an object-relational SQL database. The release
contains a variety of fixes, including a security fix.

Eikazo is a graphical frontend for SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy)
designed for mass-scanning, especially with scanners equiped with and
ADF (Automatic Document Feeder). Eikazo's main goal is to be as fast
as possible. The 0.5 release is the first release of Eikazo.

== Launchpad News ==

The first Launchpad Users Meeting is at 17:00 UTC on Wednesday 7
March, in #launchpad on irc.freenode.net. It's your chance to ask
questions of Launchpad developers and give your feedback. Add your
questions to the meeting agenda at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaunchpadUserMeeting/2007-03-07

The new Launchpad 1.0 beta is in full swing and the team is looking
for members of the Ubuntu community to join in. The main change in
Launchpad 1.0 is a brand new interface, which is both easier to use
and looks superb. Being in the beta team is hassle-free: just carry on
using Launchpad as normal and, if you find something wrong in the new
interface, report a bug.

Sign up at https://launchpad.net/~launchpad-beta-testers/

If you use Launchpad regularly, you may have noticed that your karma
dropped at the end of January. A bug in Launchpad's karma code led to
everyone's karma increasing, sometimes by large amounts, from October
2006. Following the reduction, everyone's karma is now a true
reflection of their work in Launchpad.

Finally, Launchpad has also welcomed some new upstream projects.
Zope3, SchoolTool and Silva CMS have started the move to Launchpad's
bug tracker.

As always, the Launchpad team would love to hear from you in the
launchpad-users mailing list. You can join at
https://lists.canonical.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users

=== Ubuntu - Brazilian Software of the Year (2006) ===

Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary) won the title of Brazilian Software of the Year
(2006) from the most prestigeous non-technical computer magazine in
Brazil, called Info Exame (124,000 issues sold monthly). The original
link in portuguese: http://info.abril.com.br/premioinfo/2006/.

== Meetings and Events ==

=== 2006-01-30 Ubuntu Technical Board ===

 * Timo Aaltonen, Adrien Cunin and Luke Yelavich were approved as new
UbuntuDevelopers
 * The MotuProcessesSpec proposal was discussed, and several revisions
were agreed, which Daniel Holbach agreed to document.  The revised
proposal will then be reviewed by the full Technical Board via email
for approval.
 * The HelpAndSupportAccess specification was discussed, and the
fundamentals approved.  The page layout will require some revision,
but the technical change of replacing the Help submenu with a help
page should improve clarity and allow for more flexible navigation
 * We briefly discussed the question of whether `reportbug` should
remain in main, be moved to universe along with `dpkg-dev-el` or be
moved to universe by eliminating the dependency.  It was decided to
proceed with the discussion via email with the rest of the Board due
to the late hour and length of the meeting.

=== Thursday, March 01, 2007 ===

==== Ubuntu Development Team Meeting ====

 * Start: 21:00 Etc/GMT
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting

==== Argentina LoCo Team Meeting ====

 * Start: 20:00 America/Buenos Aires
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-ar

=== Saturday, March 03, 2007 ===

==== Colorado LoCo Team IRC Meeting ====

 * Start: 10:00 America/Denver
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-colorado
 * Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ColoradoTeam

=== Sunday, March 04, 2007 ===

==== Georgia LoCo Team Meeting ====

 * Start: 18:00 Etc/GMT
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-georgia
 * Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GeorgiaUSTeam

=== Monday, March 05, 2007 ===

==== Kernel Team Meeting ====

 * Start: 15:00 Etc/GMT
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
 * Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/Meeting

==== Scribes Team Meeting ====

 * Start: 21:00 Etc/GMT
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-scribes
 * Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ScribesTeam

=== Tuesday, March 06, 2007 ===

==== Mozilla Team Meeting ====

 * Start: 18:00 Etc/GMT
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
 * Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Meetings

==== MOTU meeting ====

 * Start: 20:00 Etc/GMT
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
 * Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Meetings

==== New York LoCo Team Meeting ====

 * Start: 23:00 Etc/GMT
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-ny
 * Agenda: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NewYorkTeam

=== Wednesday, March 07, 2007 ===

==== Edubuntu Meeting ====

 * Start: 12:00 Etc/GMT
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting
 * Agenda: https://wiki.edubuntu.org/EdubuntuMeetingAgenda

=== Thursday, March 08, 2007 ===

==== Ubuntu Development Team Meeting ====

 * Start: 16:00 Etc/GMT
 * Location: IRC channel #ubuntu-meeting

== Updates and security for 6.06 and 6.10 ==

=== Security Updates ===

 * USN-398-4: Firefox regression - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-398-4
 * USN-428-1: Firefox vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-428-1
 * USN-427-1: Enigmail vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-427-1
 * USN-426-1: Ekiga vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-426-1
 * USN-425-1: slocate vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-425-1
 * USN-424-1: PHP vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-424-1
 * USN-423-1: MoinMoin vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-423-1
 * USN-422-1: ImageMagick vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-422-1
 * USN-417-3: PostgreSQL regression - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-417-3
 * USN-421-1: MoinMoin vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-421-1
 * USN-417-2: PostgreSQL regression - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-417-2
 * USN-420-1: KDE library vulnerability - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-420-1
 * USN-419-1: Samba vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-419-1
 * USN-418-1: Bind vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-418-1
 * USN-417-1: PostgreSQL vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-417-1
 * USN-416-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-416-1
 * USN-415-1: GTK vulnerability  - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-415-1

=== Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Updates ===

 * glibc 2.3.6-0ubuntu20.4 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012347.html
 * popularity-contest 1.31ubuntu2.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012348.html
 * synaptic 0.57.8ubuntu13 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012349.html
 * app-install-data-commercial 5.3 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012350.html
 * flashplugin-nonfree 9.0.31.0.1ubuntu1~dapper1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012351.html
 * kinoplus 0.3.5-3build1~dapper1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012352.html
 * p7zip 4.43~dfsg.1-1~dapper1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012353.html
 * lvm2 2.02.02-1ubuntu1.5 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012354.html
 * cupsys 1.2.2-0ubuntu0.6.06.2~proposed1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012355.html
 * langpack-locales 2.3.18.2~prop1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012356.html
 * moin 1.5.2-1ubuntu2.2 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012357.html
 * php5 5.1.2-1ubuntu3.5 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012358.html
 * slocate 3.0.beta.r3-1ubuntu0.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012359.html
 * ekiga 2.0.1-0ubuntu6.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012360.html
 * mousepad 0.2.2-2ubuntu5.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012361.html
 * enigmail 2:0.94-0ubuntu4.3 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/dapper-changes/2007-February/012362.html

=== Ubuntu 6.10 Updates ===

 * cinepaint 0.20-1-2ubuntu0.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008193.html
 * wxwidgets2.6 2.6.3.2.1.5ubuntu0.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008194.html
 * kubuntu-default-settings 1:6.10-61.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008195.html
 * popularity-contest 1.33ubuntu2.2 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008196.html
 * flashplugin-nonfree 9.0.31.0.1ubuntu1~edgy1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008197.html
 * kxmame 2.0~beta-0ubuntu2~edgy1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008198.html
 * wine 0.9.30-0ubuntu2~edgy1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008199.html
 * wordpress 2.1.0-1~edgy1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008200.html
 * xmms-sid 0.7.4+0.8.0beta15-2build0.1~proposed1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008201.html
 * gnome-vfs2 2.16.1-0ubuntu7 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008202.html
 * lvm2 2.02.06-2ubuntu3.5 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008203.html
 * obconf 1.5-3ubuntu0.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008204.html
 * python-pam 0.4.2-10.4build0.1~proposed1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008205.html
 * tzdata 2007b-0ubuntu0.6.10~proposed1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008206.html
 * mysql-dfsg-5.0 5.0.24a-9ubuntu1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008207.html
 * moin 1.5.3-1ubuntu1.2 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008208.html
 * php5 5.1.6-1ubuntu2.2 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008209.html
 * slocate 3.1-1ubuntu0.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008210.html
 * ekiga 2.0.3-0ubuntu3.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008211.html
 * apt 0.6.45ubuntu14.2 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008212.html
 * xdg-utils 1.0-0ubuntu2.2 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008213.html
 * mythtv 0.20-0.2ubuntu2.1~proposed1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008214.html
 * enigmail 2:0.94-0ubuntu5.1 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008215.html
 * firefox 2.0.0.2+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10 -
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edgy-changes/2007-February/008216.html

== Bug Stats ==

Compared period: Jan, 28th 2007 - Feb 28th 2007

   * Open (23137) + 1900 over last month
   * Critical (17) - 4 over last month
   * Unconfirmed (11398) + 719 over last month
   * Unassigned (17061) + 1024 over last month
   * All bugs ever reported (79159)  + 5999 over last month

As always, the Bug Squad needs more help. If you want to get started,
please seehttps://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs

Check out the bug statistics: http://people.ubuntu-in.org/~carthik/bugstats/

== Archives and RSS Feed ==

You can always find older Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter issues at:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter

You can subscribe to the Ubuntu Weekly News via RSS at:
http://fridge.ubuntu.com/uwn/feed

== Additional Ubuntu News ==

As always you can find more news and announcements at:

 http://www.ubuntu.com/news

and

 http://fridge.ubuntu.com/

== Conclusion ==

Thank you for reading the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter.

See you next week!

== Credits ==

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

 * Jonathon Riddell
 * Cody A.W. Somerville
 * Martin Albisetti
 * Isabelle Duchatelle
 * Freddy Martinez
 * RJ Marsan
 * Mariano Mara
 * And many others

== Feedback ==

This document is maintained by the Ubuntu Marketing Team. Please feel
free to contact us regarding any concerns or suggestions by either
sending an email to ubuntu-marketing at lists.ubuntu.com or by using any
of the other methods on the Ubuntu Marketing Team Contact Information
Page (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam). If you'd like to
contribute to a future issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, please
feel free to edit the appropriate wiki page.