FWN/Issue126

= Fedora Weekly News Issue 126 =

Welcome to Fedora Weekly News Issue 126 for the week of March 24th, 2008.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue126

In Announcements, we have "F9 Beta release announcement", "Rawhide 20080328 Snapshot", "FUDCon Lodging", "Fedora Python SIG" and "Fedora Updates System"

In Planet Fedora, we have "OS Wrangler and Server Developers still needed", "Reviewing toolchains — publican and /cvs/docs", "NetworkManager and mobile broadband", "Persistence of vision" and "Seek ye students"

We are always looking for more writers to help us deliver timely information to the Fedora community.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NewsProject/Join.

Announcements
In this section, we cover announcements from Fedora Project.

https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-announce-list

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

F9 Beta release announcement
JesseKeating announces in fedora-announce-list[1] ,

"The Beta release is the point at which we really want and need the wider community's help with testing. Beta is a point of much greater stability in Fedora's development branch, but some fixes continue to occur to improve usability, performance, and stability.  This release is great for early adopters and Linux enthusiasts!  The Fedora 9 Beta boots on the majority of systems, and gives you an idea of how the final Fedora 9 will look and feel.  Most importantly, we absolutely need community assistance to check features and provide feedback and bug reports, to help ensure that Fedora 9 is our best release ever."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-March/msg00011.html

Rawhide 20080328 Snapshot
JesseKeating announces in fedora-announce-list[1] ,

"As part of our development schedule, we are releasing a snapshot of Rawhide in iso and Live form. We are releasing these via bittorrent only as it is a much lighter weight method to get bits out the door than to go through our mirroring system."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-March/msg00013.html

FUDCon Lodging
PaulFrields announces in fedora-announce-list[1] ,

"As the co-organizers for the North American FUDCon F10, the illustrious Max Spevack and I are trying to get a handle on our true hotel needs for the event. To that end, I’ve made a couple changes to the FUDCon planning page so we can gather information on who needs lodging for the show."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-March/msg00014.html

Fedora Python SIG
IgnacioVazquezAbrams announces in fedora-announce-list[1] ,

"Come one, come all, to the brand new Fedora Project's Python SIG's mailing list. Regardless of whether you are a newbie or a grizzled veteran, a Sunday dabbler or a hardcore hacker, or merely curious what this is all about, all are welcome."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-March/msg00012.html

Fedora Updates System
StewartAdam announces in fedora-announce-list[1] ,

"Did you know you can help packagers test updates, give them feedback and even prevent a faulty package from being pushed into the repositories? The new Fedora Updates System (bodhi) integrates with the Fedora Build System (koji) and lets any user give feedback on a specific update, be it in updates-testing or in the stable repository."

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-March/msg00010.html

Planet Fedora
In this section, we cover a highlight of Planet Fedora - an aggregation of blogs from world wide Fedora contributors.

http://planet.fedoraproject.org/

Contributing Writers: ThomasChung

OS Wrangler and Server Developers still needed
HavocPennington points out in his blog[1] ,

"We've made good progress hiring UI developers and designers for LiTL. We may hire more on the UI side in a while (please do let us know if you'd be interested), but we have an initial team.

In the meantime we are turning our focus to a couple other positions. See the official job descriptions and if you're interested, please email jobs at litl com."

[1] http://log.ometer.com/2008-03.html#31

Reviewing toolchains — publican and /cvs/docs
KarstenWade points out in his blog[1] ,

"With all the attention on documentation toolchains in Fedora Docs, I wanted to provide a quick scope on the differences between the toolchain we’ve been using over the years, in /cvs/docs, and the newcomer, publican."

[1] http://iquaid.org/2008/03/30/reviewing-toolchains-publican-and-cvsdocs/

NetworkManager and mobile broadband
JonStanley points out in his blog[1] ,

"As mentioned in previous posts, I had an outage on my home Internet connection. With mobile broadband support in NetworkManager being a feature of F9, I figured that I should probably test it. So, I just plugged in my card to my Fedora 9 laptop, and up came "Auto CDMA Network Connection" in the NetworkManager menu, selected it, and just like that, I'm on the Internet at Sprint-speed!"

[1] http://jons-thoughts.blogspot.com/2008/03/networkmanager-and-mobile-broadband.html

Persistence of vision
PaulFrields points out in his blog[1] ,

"In between bouts of fighting one of my broken systems at home, I’m trying to spend some time working on our Single Source Summary page on the wiki. In doing that, and in talking to some other people about the Fedora 9 Beta, I found out that some of our keen new features may not have all the exposure they deserve — one of those is the work our resident ninja master Jeremy Katz has done on persistence for Live images."

[1] http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=963

Seek ye students
KarstenWade points out in his blog[1] ,

"In the middle of the Summer of Code proposals process and it’s been a mixed yet mostly good experience. We still have room for more proposals, so keep helping interested students and encourage them to get in a proposal for Fedora or JBoss.org. We’ll know at the beginning of next week if the student deadline is extended; currently 31 March still stands as the application deadline."

[1] http://iquaid.org/2008/03/29/seek-ye-students/

Ambassadors
In this section, we cover Fedora Ambassadors Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors

Contributing Writer: JeffreyTadlock

Ambassador Polo Shirts
JoergSimon announced[1] to the Ambassadors mailing list that Ambassadors coming to Linuxtag 08 can order their Polo Shirts. The cost of the shirts are on the wiki, as well as the sign-up form[2].

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-March/msg00152.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/PoloShirt

Ambassador Talk at liberaMENTE
LucaFoppiano announced[1] that Francesco Crippa and he will be participating in talks at liberaMENTA in Opera, Italy. All are invited to attend. The event has been added to the FedoraEvents page[2].

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-March/msg00194.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents

LinuxTag 2008 Fedora Ambassador Day
FabianAffolter announced[1] the plans for the upcoming Fedora Ambassador Day being held before LinuxTag. The FAD will be held in Berlin on May 27, 2008. Country overviews have been requested for the meeting. A page[2] has been added to the wiki for additional planning.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-March/msg00212.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD/FADLinuxTag2008

Fedora 9 Release Events Planning
FrancescoUgolini has announced[1] the brainstorming session for Fedora 9 release events. This is in preparation for organizing release parties near the Fedora 9 release time. If you have ideas and suggestions for activities at the release parties, please contribute to the Release Events wiki page[2].

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-March/msg00215.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/ReleaseEvents

Infrastructure
This section contains the discussion happening on the fedora-infrastructure-list

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure

Contributing Writer: HuzaifaSidhpurwala

app2 rebuild
MikeMcGrath writes[1] on fedora-infrastructure-list

Mike is going to rebuild app2 and stick some of our tg apps on there. Seth brought up an excellent point earlier in that our tg apps aren't really using any x86_64 code but the python objects they create can be 2-3x larger in memory. Since most of our performance issues with these apps is memory bloat (and ultimate swap) Mike is going to build it as an i686 box, and then compare memory foot prints after a week or two.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2008-March/msg00147.html

Fedora CA Project
DennisGilmore writes[1] on fedora-infrastructure-list

We have come to the realisation that this has to be done sooner rather than later. So Dennis put a call to revamp the CA infrastructure used in fedora[2].

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2008-March/msg00155.html

[2] https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure/ticket/466

Artwork
In this section, we cover Fedora Artwork Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork

Contributing Writer: NicuBuculei

Fedora Art on the Linux Action Show
The Fedora Art Team leader, MairinDuffy, was interviewed in for the latest edition of the Linux Action Show[1], a segment about 20 minutes long, covering the status of the Fedora 9 graphics, the team organisation and projects, its relations with the larger Fedora project and with Red Hat and much more. The interview was not very prominent in the Fedora universe and the team busy with nailing the last details of the upcoming theme, so NicuBuculei express his satisfaction about interview's outcome on the list[2].

[1] http://www.linuxactionshow.com/?p=176 (start at minute 25:00)

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-March/msg00194.html

Final touches on waves
MatthiasClasen, from the Desktop team asks[1] about the status of the Fedora 9 art, considering the release schedule and the short remaining time. He is pointed[2] to the wiki[3], where the graphics resides and final versions have landed for almost all graphics: Syslinux, Anaconda, GRUB, Firstboot, RHGB. Only the desktop wallpaper and the GNOME splash screen (which is not shown by default anyway) needs some more touches.

[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-March/msg00204.html

[2] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2008-March/msg00208.html

[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F9Themes/Waves/Round3Final

Security Week
In this section, we highlight the security stories from the week in Fedora.

Contributing Writer: JoshBressers

Secure Browser?
I ran across a story last week about researchers creating a secure web browser[1].

It seems there is work being done on a new secure web browser. The authors think that the current browsers suffer from fundamental design flaws that cannot be overcome. The notable thing is that from reading the article it's Open Source software being used. As the current offerings such as XULRunner and WebKit will allow various third parties to easily create niche browsers such as this. While this browser will likely never become a mainstream offering, it is nice that it can fill a hole in the current offerings.

[1] http://www.eweek.com/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=47212&pop=1&hide_ads=1&page=0&hide_js=1

Firefox 2.0.0.13
Firefox 2.0.0.13[1] was released this week. There's not much to say beyond, make sure you're running it.

[1] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html#firefox2.0.0.13

Security Advisories
In this section, we cover Security Advisories from fedora-package-announce.

https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-package-announce

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

Fedora 8 Security Advisories

 * php-pear-PhpDocumentor-1.4.1-2.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00551.html
 * Miro-1.1.2-2.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00577.html
 * yelp-2.20.0-8.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00578.html
 * epiphany-2.20.3-2.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00579.html
 * gtkmozembedmm-1.4.2.cvs20060817-19.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00580.html
 * ruby-gnome2-0.16.0-21.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00581.html
 * gnome-python2-extras-2.19.1-13.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00582.html
 * epiphany-extensions-2.20.1-6.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00583.html
 * liferea-1.4.13-2.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00584.html
 * galeon-2.0.4-1.fc8.3 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00585.html
 * devhelp-0.16.1-6.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00586.html
 * gnome-web-photo-0.3-9.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00587.html
 * openvrml-0.17.5-4.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00588.html
 * chmsee-1.0.0-1.30.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00589.html
 * kazehakase-0.5.3-5.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00590.html
 * firefox-2.0.0.13-1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00591.html
 * blam-1.8.3-14.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00592.html
 * namazu-2.0.18-1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00654.html
 * Perlbal-1.70-1.fc8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00665.html

Fedora 7 Security Advisories

 * chmsee-1.0.0-1.30.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00552.html
 * devhelp-0.13-15.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00553.html
 * epiphany-2.18.3-8.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00554.html
 * epiphany-extensions-2.18.3-8 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00555.html
 * firefox-2.0.0.13-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00556.html
 * galeon-2.0.3-16.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00557.html
 * gtkmozembedmm-1.4.2.cvs20060817-16.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00558.html
 * Miro-1.1.2-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00559.html
 * gnome-python2-extras-2.14.3-9.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00560.html
 * kazehakase-0.5.3-5.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00561.html
 * liferea-1.4.13-2.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00562.html
 * openvrml-0.16.7-4.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00563.html
 * ruby-gnome2-0.16.0-22.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00564.html
 * yelp-2.18.1-10.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00565.html
 * namazu-2.0.18-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00575.html
 * Perlbal-1.70-1.fc7 - https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-package-announce/2008-March/msg00672.html

Events and Meetings
In this section, we cover event reports and meeting summaries from various Projects and SIGs.

Contributing Writer: ThomasChung

Fedora Board Meeting Minutes 2008-03-25

 * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/

Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee Meeting 2008-03-28

 * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/SteeringCommittee/Meetings/

Fedora Marketing Meeting 2008-03-27

 * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/Meetings/Minutes

Fedora Documentation Steering Committee Meeting 2008-03-26

 * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SteeringCommittee/Meetings/Minutes

Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting 2008-03-25

 * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Minutes

Fedora SIG KDE Meeting 2008-03-25

 * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/KDE/Meetings/