Mailing List Archive

Gentoo Weekly Newsletter 10 July 2006
Apologies for the delay of last week's Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, but we
simply forgot to send out the e-mail version. The next edition will follow
in a few minutes.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of 10 July 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

==============
1. Gentoo news
==============

GNOME 2.14 stable
-----------------

The Gentoo GNOME[1] team has asked for GNOME 2.14.2 to be marked stable.
This is an upgrade from the current 2.12 stable version of GNOME. If you
are interested in tracking the progress of the stabilization efforts, you
can follow bug 139612 [2].

1. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/gnome
2. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=139612

New VDR project
---------------

The Gentoo Video Disk Recorder [3] (VDR) project has existed for quite
some time as an unofficial project. It is now an official subproject of
desktop/video and deals with the program VDR[4] and its proper integration
with Gentoo.

3. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/video/vdr
4. http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr

VDR is a solution to build a full-featured set-top box (STB) for digital
video broadcasting (DVB) and Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC)
reception. However, it is not restricted to just digital input. With the
analogtv-plugin it can also exploit analog TV capture cards.

VDR can be extended with a lot more functionality by utilizing any of a
very large number of plugins. A full list can be found under the
plugins[5] section of the linuxtv.org site, or the German VDR Wiki[6],
though the German one is more up-to-date. Around 90 plugins are already
available via ebuilds.

5. http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Plugins
6. http://www.vdr-wiki.de/wiki/index.php/Plugins

Among these are plugins to do the following things:

* Supporting new input-devices (analog-capture cards with or without an
hardware MPEG-encoder)
* Support other outputs than the hardware MPEG-decoder of a full-featured
DVB-card (cheap DXR3-cards, softdevice, xine)
* Viewing timetable of channels in different ways
* Teletext/Subtitles
* Downloading weather information from the Internet
* Much more

The Gentoo VDR Project provides:

* The main program with a big patchset controllable via USE flags
* The plugin ebuilds
* An associated eclass
* A sophisticated set of init scripts with add-ons for vdr-plugins
* Other related packages

========================
2. Developer of the week
========================

"I blame the pinecones." - Andrew Gaffney, aka agaffney
-------------------------------------------------------

Figure 2.1: Andrew Gaffney, aka agaffney
http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20060710_agaffney.jpg

Developer Andrew Gaffney, known to us as agaffney, has resided in Missouri
for most of his life. He lives in the St. Louis area with his wife,
Angela, a preschool teacher, and their cat, Puddy, a sun bather.

This 22 year old developer runs a one man IT department for Creative
Communications. A typical day could consist of programming, administrating
the database, or the network itself, and of course, technichal support! He
is proud to mention that he runs Gentoo on almost everything that he
touches.

As if juggling work, Gentoo, and married life wasn't enough, Andrew also
finds time for swimming and playing raquetball... or something resembling
raquetball. His daily surfing includes sites such as thedailywtf.com and
penny-arcade.com. As for agaffney's music tastes, he says that he will
listen to almost anything... if he can understand what they're saying.
(Andrew was listening to a live Nirvana album when we chatted.)

Andrew stated that what he likes most about the Gentoo distribution is
that you're not forced in any direction and can make it into whatever you
want it to be. He recalls his start with Gentoo almost two years ago,
giving his opinions on IRC whenever anyone would listen and coercing
others to look at his code until they finally made him an official
developer. Agaffney is the Installer Project Lead and is also the x86
Release Coordinator for the upcoming 2006.1 release... and more to follow
if Release Engineering has their way!

So what about his home machines? He starts his mornings off by firing up
urxvt, openssh, and amarok. Agaffney boasts his collection of more than a
few architechtures: an HP C3600 (hppa), HP 715/75 (hppa), SGI Octane
(mips), dual-processor G4 tower (ppc), 333MHz iMac (ppc), Netra t1125
(sparc), Athlon64 X2 4200+ w/2GB memory (x86_64), and a few miscellaneous
x86 boxes. His main workstation, Kagome, is an x86_64 box. His main
server, a sparc named Ryoko, runs apache, mysql, and postfix.

=========================
3. Heard in the community
=========================

forums
------

Gentoo Community Sites

Gentoo developer Thomas Cort[7] is currently putting together a directory
of Gentoo community sites and has requested that people post URLs of sites
that he may have missed.

7. tcort@gentoo.org

* Gentoo Community Sites[8]
* http://larrythecow.com[9]
8. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-478457.html
9. http://larrythecow.com/


X.Org 7.1 still testing because of binary drivers?

Forum veteran R!tman, asks if not stabilizing Xorg 7.1 on x86 and amd64
architectures was purely motivated by its incompatibility with the binary
nVidia and ATI drivers. He ponders whether this was the correct thing to
do, as it would seem that Gentoo was being held back by commercial,
closed-source software.

* X 7.1 still testing on x86/amd64 because of BINARY drivers?[10]
10. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-477702.html


=========================
4. Gentoo developer moves
=========================

Moves
-----

The following developers recently left the Gentoo project:

* Jory Pratt (Anarchy)

Adds
----

The following developers recently joined the Gentoo project:

* none this week

Changes
-------

The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo project:

* none this week

==================
5. Gentoo security
==================

mpg123: Heap overflow
---------------------

A heap overflow in mpg123 was discovered, which could result in the
execution of arbitrary code.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[11]

11. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-01.xml

FreeType: Multiple integer overflows
------------------------------------

Multiple remotely exploitable buffer overflows have been discovered in
FreeType, resulting in the execution of arbitrary code.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[12]

12. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-02.xml

libTIFF: Multiple buffer overflows
----------------------------------

libTIFF contains buffer overflows that could result in arbitrary code
execution.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[13]

13. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-03.xml

PostgreSQL: SQL injection
-------------------------

A flaw in the multibyte character handling allows execution of arbitrary
SQL statements.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[14]

14. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-04.xml

SHOUTcast server: Multiple vulnerabilities
------------------------------------------

The SHOUTcast server is vulnerable to a file disclosure vulnerability and
multiple XSS vulnerabilities.

For more information, please see the GLSA Announcement[15]

15. http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200607-05.xml

===========
6. Bugzilla
===========

Summary
-------

* Statistics
* Closed bug ranking
* New bug rankings

Statistics
----------

The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[16]) to record and
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the
development team. Between 02 July 2006 and 09 July 2006, activity on the
site has resulted in:

16. http://bugs.gentoo.org

* 921 new bugs during this period
* 454 bugs closed or resolved during this period
* 25 previously closed bugs were reopened this period

Of the 10411 currently open bugs: 51 are labeled 'blocker', 136 are
labeled 'critical', and 525 are labeled 'major'.

Closed bug rankings
-------------------

The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs during this period
are:

* Gentoo net-im Herd[17], with 26 closed bugs[18]
* Perl Devs @ Gentoo[19], with 23 closed bugs[20]
* AMD64 Project[21], with 23 closed bugs[22]
* Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team[23], with 19 closed bugs[24]
* Portage team[25], with 16 closed bugs[26]
* media-video herd[27], with 14 closed bugs[28]
* Java team[29], with 14 closed bugs[30]
* Gentoo Sound Team[31], with 12 closed bugs[32]
17. net-im@gentoo.org
18. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=net-im@gentoo.org
19. perl@gentoo.org
20. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=perl@gentoo.org
21. amd64@gentoo.org
22. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=amd64@gentoo.org
23. gnome@gentoo.org
24. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=gnome@gentoo.org
25. dev-portage@gentoo.org
26. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=dev-portage@gentoo.org
27. media-video@gentoo.org
28. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=media-video@gentoo.org
29. java@gentoo.org
30. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=java@gentoo.org
31. sound@gentoo.org
32. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&chfield=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&resolution=FIXED&assigned_to=sound@gentoo.org


New bug rankings
----------------

The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs during
this period are:

* Default Assignee for New Packages[33], with 28 new bugs[34]
* Java team[35], with 15 new bugs[36]
* Default Assignee for Orphaned Packages[37], with 14 new bugs[38]
* media-video herd[39], with 11 new bugs[40]
* X11 External Driver Maintainers[41], with 10 new bugs[42]
* Gentoo X-windows packagers[43], with 9 new bugs[44]
* Gentoo KDE team[45], with 8 new bugs[46]
* Gentoo's Team for Core System packages[47], with 7 new bugs[48]
33. maintainer-wanted@gentoo.org
34. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&assigned_to=maintainer-wanted@gentoo.org
35. java@gentoo.org
36. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&assigned_to=java@gentoo.org
37. maintainer-needed@gentoo.org
38. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&assigned_to=maintainer-needed@gentoo.org
39. media-video@gentoo.org
40. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&assigned_to=media-video@gentoo.org
41. x11-drivers@gentoo.org
42. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&assigned_to=x11-drivers@gentoo.org
43. x11@gentoo.org
44. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&assigned_to=x11@gentoo.org
45. kde@gentoo.org
46. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&assigned_to=kde@gentoo.org
47. base-system@gentoo.org
48. http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2006-07-02&chfieldto=2006-07-09&assigned_to=base-system@gentoo.org


===============
7. GWN feedback
===============

Please send us your feedback[49] and help make the GWN better.

49. gwn-feedback@gentoo.org

===============================
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==================
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==================

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Ulrich Plate <plate@gentoo.org> - Editor
Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@gentoo.org> - Author
Mark Kowarsky <mark_alec@gentoo.org> - Author
Chrissy Fullam <musikc@charter.net> - Author

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