Tag: ftpmaster

FTP assistant

This month I marked 485 packages for accept, rejected 87 of them and had to send 18 emails to maintainers. The NEW-queue is below 100 again, but you hardworking fellows don’t make a break, but start the GCC5 transition. This is so much fun :-).

Squeeze LTS

This was my thirteens month that I did some work for the Squeeze LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month I got assigned a workload of 15h and I spent again most of it to work on a new upload of php5. I finally prepared the patches for the CVEs and realized only then that the number of failed tests drastically increased. So return to beginning and checking why everything is broken now :-(.

• [DLA 269-1] linux-ftpd-ssl security update
• [DLA 271-1] libunwind security update
• [DLA 280-1] ghostscript security update
• [DLA 281-1] expat security update

The patch for [DLA 269-1] was prepared by Mats Erik Andersson.

This month I also had another term of doing frontdesk work. So I answered questions on the IRC channel and looked for CVEs that are important for Squeeze LTS or could be ignored.

Other stuff

This month I could finally finish the harminv transition and all affected packages migrated to testing meanwhile.

I also uploaded a new version for pipexec.

Donations

Again, thanks alot to all donors. I really appreciate this and hope that everybody is pleased with my commitment. Don’t hesitate to make suggestions for improvements.

FTP assistant

This month I marked 539 packages for accept, rejected 61 of them and had to send 24 emails to maintainers. This is a new personal record. Even in the month before the Jessie freeze I accepted only 407 packages. So, very well done (self-laudation has to happen from time to time :-)).

Another record was broken as well. After 19 month of doing this kind of work, I got my first insulting email. I would prefer to wait another 19 month before I get the next one …

Squeeze LTS

This was my twelfth month that I did some work for the Squeeze LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month I got assigned a workload of only 14.5h and I spent most of it to work on a new upload of php5. Unfortunately there have been so many CVEs comming in, that I didn’t do an upload yet.

Other stuff I uploaded was

• [DLA 258-1] jqueryui security update
• [DLA 262-1] libcrypto++ security update

This month I also had my first one and a half weeks of doing frontdesk work. As introduced in this email, every member of the LTS team should do some LTS CVE triage. Up to now it was mainly done by Raphael and he wants to share this task with everybody else. So I answered questions on the IRC channel, on the LTS list and looked for CVEs that are important for Squeeze LTS or could be ignored.

Other stuff

This month I also uploaded a new version of harminv and wondered why the package didn’t move to testing. Of course there is a document how to do a transition of a library properly. But hey, it is me, I know everything better and of course I can use a shortcut. Oh boy, I was wrong. So I also uploaded new versions of meep, meep-lam4, meep-openmpi, meep-mpi-default and meep-mpich2.

And the moral of the story: If you don’t understand why something should be done in a specific way, you shouldn’t try to do it different.

Donations

Again, thanks alot to all donors. I really appreciate this and hope that everybody is pleased with my commitment. Don’t hesitate to make suggestions for improvements.

FTP assistant

This month I marked 235 packages for accept and rejected 44 of them. I know, the NEW-queue is rather large, but the numbers are showing a downward trend again.

In the light of recent events I would like to cite two things. The US Copyright Office Circular 14 says about derivative work:

A typical example of a derivative work received for registration in the Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published material. This previously published material makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law. To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a “new work” or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example, are not copyrightable.

Title 17 of the United States Code says in §103:

The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material.

Squeeze LTS

This was my eleventh month that I did some work for the Squeeze LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month I got assigned a workload of only 10.25h and I spent most of it to prepare a new upload of ruby1.9.1. The other stuff I uploaded was

• [DLA 222-1] commons-httpclient security update
• [DLA 226-1] ntfs-3g security update
• [DLA 226-2] ntfs-3g regression update
• [DLA 235-1] ruby1.9.1 security update

[DLA 222-1 has been “only” a sponsored upload, where Markus Koschany prepared the patches. [DLA-226] needed two uploads as the first patch turned out to be incomplete. I also marked CVEs in the security tracker as for Squeeze or added notes for future processing.
The next big adventure in June will be another upload of PHP5.

Other stuff

This month I also uploaded feynmf to take care of the new TDS tree (#766287).

Donations

Again, thanks alot to all donors. I really appreciate this and hope that everybody is pleased with my commitment. Don’t hesitate to make suggestions for improvements.

FTP assistant

Recently the NEW queue grew due to lots of uploads of new KDE software and several smaller node-packages. The KDE-stuff will be processed one after another, but the node-stuff seems to be rather strange. After the last discussion I was told that all those small packages can be accumulated into bigger chunks. I hope this discussion doesn’t need to be repeated again …

Anyway, this month I marked 117 packages for accept and rejected 51 packages.

Squeeze LTS

This was my ninth month that I did some work for the Squeeze LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month I got assigned a workload of 15.25h and I spent these hours to upload new versions of:

• [DLA 163-1] bind9 security update
• [DLA 166-1] libarchive security update
• [DLA 167-1] redcloth security update
• [DLA 170-1] mod-gnutls security update
• [DLA 171-1] libssh2 security update
• [DLA 181-1] xerces-c security update
• [DLA 182-1] batik security update
• [DLA 183-1] libxfont security update
• [DLA 184-1] binutils security update

Finally I was also able to upload the binutils package. Up to now, I got no complaints that something is not working anymore, so yeah, I seem to make it. The next big adventure will be a new upload of PHP. I already started with some patches, but it is still a good piece of work.

I also uploaded update for DLA 164-1] unace security update, [DLA 168-1] konversation security update and [DLA 172-1] libextlib-ruby security update although no LTS sponsor indicated any interest.

Other packages

This month the severity of one bug in greylistd had been raised from normal to severe and such I had to upload a new version. Thanks to Andreas Beckmann for raising and for providing a patch.

I also uploaded a new version of dict-elements and closed a bug related to reproducible builds.

As I am the maintainer of libkeepalive, I got an email from Andreas Florath. He wanted to persuade me to create a package for his library libdontdie, which is rather similar to libkeepalive but has some improvements. As I promised to do some more packaging work, he didn’t have to argue much and voila, there now is a new package libdontdie available. As the cooperation with him is really pleasant, I also created a package for his other project: pipexec.

Donations

Thanks alot to all donors, this month I got 30€ in total. I really appreciate this and hope that everybody is pleased with my commitment. Don’t hesitate to make suggestions for improvements.

FTP assistant

This month at the beginning of the year has been rather quiet as well. All in all I marked 50 packages for accept and rejected only 17 packages.

Squeeze LTS

This was my seventh month that I did some work for the Squeeze LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month I got assigned a workload of 12h and I spent these hours to upload new versions of:

• [DLA 127-1] pyyaml security update
• [DLA 128-1] sox security update
• [DLA 138-1] jasper security update
• [DLA 145-1] php5 security update

In doing so, preparing the upload for php5 consumed most of the time as support from Upstream for the old version in Squeeze no longer exists. Oddly enough, a simple one-line-patch seems to have created a regression …

I also sponsored the upload of [DLA 133-1] unrtf security update, [DLA 134-1] curl security update and [DLA 130-1] firebird2.1 security update. Many thanks to Nguyen Cong from Toshiba who prepared the patches for these packages.

I also uploaded two DLAs for polarssel ([DLA 129-1] polarssl security update and [DLA 144-1] polarssl security update) although no LTS sponsor indicated any interest.

Other packages

Thanks to the relentless QA work of Andreas Beckmann, his piuparts tests detected an issue in the greylistd package. If greylistd has been installed in Wheezy, removed but not purged afterwards, the whole system dist-upgraded to Jessie and afterwards greylistd is installed again, there would be an error message. RC bug taken, fixed package uploaded and unblock request approved.

FTP assistant

In contrast to the last month, this month has been rather quiet and I really liked that :-). The stress has moved to the next team. So all in all I marked 101 packages for accept and had to reject 27 packages. As I mostly reviewed really new packages, I didn’t have to file any RC bug this month.

Squeeze LTS

This was my fifth month that I did some work for the Squeeze LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

This month I got assigned a workload of 14.25h and I spent these hours to upload new versions of:

• [DLA 82-1] wget security update
• [DLA 84-1] curl security update
• [DLA 89-1] nss security update
• [DLA 90-1] imagemagick security update
• [DLA 94-1] php5 security update
• [DLA 97-1] eglibc security update

I also uploaded [DLA 85-1] libxml-security-java security update, but as nobody of the LTS sponsors had any interest in this package, I did this in my “spare” time. A package with security in its name should not be affected by security issues.

This month my failure of the month has been the binutils package. Although the security team prepared the way for finding the correct patches for all those CVEs, I somehow managed to not find them. This is embarassing …

I am also a bit disappointed by current LTS users. All important packages have been made available for testing before uploading them to the archive. Apart from some brave fellow DDs, no other feedback was reported on debian-lts. Complaints arrived only when the packages have been finally uploaded. Do admins have enough time nowadays and don’t need to use some kind of testbed? Times are changing …

Other packages

This month I even found some time to sponsor uploads, so please welcome a new version of fastaq in experimental and patiently wait for aegaen and kmc to pass NEW.

At this point I also want to mention the Debian Med Advent Calendar, which was announced in this email and already mentioned by Andreas in his latest Debian Med bits. Everybody is invited to take care of as much as possible poor souls.

Support

If you would like to support my Debian work you could either be part of the Freexian initiative (see above) or consider to send some bitcoins to 1JHnNpbgzxkoNexeXsTUGS6qUp5P88vHej. Contact me at donation@alteholz.eu if you prefer another way to donate. Every kind of support is most appreciated.