I upgraded the host running my blog to Debian 12 today. My website has existed in some form since 1997, it changed from pure html to a Python CGI script in the early 2000s, and when blogging became big around then, I migrated to WordPress around 2004. This WordPress instance ran on Ubuntu up until 2010, and then on Debian ever since. Upgrades are just too easy. I did end up hitting one small bug with today s upgrade though, I run the PHP fast process manager on the Apache MPM event server, and during upgrade, php8.2-fpm wasn t enabled somehow (contrary to what I would expect), at least a simple 'a2conf enable php8.2-fpm' saved my site again after a (very rare) few minutes of downtime.

It wouldn t be inaccurate to say that I ve had a lot on my plate in the last few years, and that I have a *huge* backlog of little tasks to finish. Just last week, I finally got to all my keysigning from DebConf22. This week, I m at MiniDebConf Germany in Hamburg. It s the second time I m here! And it s great already. Last year I drafted a blog entry, but never got around to publishing it. So, in order to mentally tick off yet another thing, here follows a somewhat imperfect (I had to delete a lot of short-hand because I didn t know what it means anymore), but at least published post about my activities from a year ago. This week (well, last year) I attended my first ever in-person MiniDebConf and MiniDebCamp in Hamburg, Germany. The last time I was in Germany was 7 years ago for DebConf15 (or at time of publishing, actually, last year for this same event). My focus for the week was to work on Debian live related stuff. In preparation for the week I tried to fix/close as many Calamares bugs as I could, so before the event I closed:

• File calamares upstream issue #1944 Calamares allows me to select a username of root for Debian bug #976617.
• File calamares upstream issue #1945 Calamares needs support for high DPI for Debian bug #992162.
• Comment on calamares bug #1005212 Calamares installer fails at partitioning disks requesting further info.
• Close calamares bug #1009876 There is no /tmp item in the list during the partitioning step in the debian calamares installer /tmp partitions can be created, not a bug, really just a small UI issue.
• Close calamares bug #974998 SegFault when clicked on Create in manual partitioning , not reproducible in bullseye.
• Close calamares bug #971266 Debian fails to start when /home is encrypted during installation this works fine since bullseye.
• Close calamares bug #976617 Calamares allows me to select a username of root has since been fixed upstream.

Monday to Friday we worked together on various issues, and the weekend was for talks. On Monday morning, I had a nice discussion with Roland Clobus who has been working on making Debian live images reproducible. He s also been working on testing Debian Live on openqa.debian.net. We re planning on integrating his work so that Debian 12 live images will be reproducible. For automated testing on openqa, it will be ongoing work, one blocker has been that snapshots.debian.org limits connections after a while, so builds on there start failing fast. On Monday afternoon, I went ahead and uploaded the latest Calamares hotfix (Calamares 3.2.58.1-1) release that fixes a UI issue on the partitioning screen where it could get stuck. On 15:00 we had a stand-up meeting where we introduced ourselves and talked a bit about our plans. It was great to see how many people could benefit from each other being there. For example, someone wanting to learn packaging, another wanting to improve packaging documentation, another wanting help with packaging something written in Rust, another wanting to improve Rust packaging in general and lots of overlap when it comes to reproducible builds! I also helped a few people with some of their packaging issues. On Monday evening, someone in videoteam managed to convince me to put together a loopy loop for this MiniDebConf. There s really wasn t enough time to put together something elaborate, but I put something together based on the previous loopy with some experiments that I ve been working on for the upcoming DC22 loopy, and we can use this loop to do a call for content for the DC22 loop. On Tuesday morning had some chats with urbec and Ilu,Tuesday afternoon talked to MIA team about upcoming removals. Did some admin on debian.ch payments for hosting. On Tuesday evening worked on live image stuff (d-i downloader, download module for dmm). On Wednesday morning I slept a bit late, then had to deal with some DPL admin/legal things. Wednesday afternoon, more chats with people. On Thursday: Talked to a bunch more people about a lot of issues, got loopy in a reasonably shape, edited and published the Group photo! On Friday: prepared my talk slides, learned about Brave (https://github.com/bbc/brave) It initially looked like a great compositor for DebConf video stuff (and possible replacement for OBS, but it turned out it wasn t really maintained upstream). In the evening we had the Cheese and Wine party, where lots of deliciousness was experienced. On Saturday, I learned from Felix s talk that Tensorflow is now in experimental! (and now in 2023 I checked again and that s still the case, although it hasn t made it s way in unstable yet, hopefully that improves over the trixie cycle) I know most of the people who attended quite well, but it was really nice to also see a bunch of new Debianites that I ve only seen online before and to properly put some faces to names. We also had a bunch of enthusiastic new contributors and we did some key signing.

The voting period for the Debian Project Leader election has ended, with all of the votes tallied we announce the winner is: Jonathan Carter, who has been elected for the forth time. Congratulations! The new term for the project leader started on 2023-04-21. 279 of 997 Developers voted using the Condorcet method. More information about the results of the voting are available on the Debian Project Leader Elections 2023 page. Many thanks all of our Developers for voting.

What are the most important improvements that Debian need to make? I decided to see what all the fuss is about and asked ChatGPT that exact question. It s response:

The list of potential improvements for Debian that I provided is based on my understanding of the challenges and opportunities that software projects like Debian typically face, as well as my understanding of the goals and values of the Debian project. It is not based on any specific information about the current priorities or needs of the Debian project or community. There are many areas where the Debian project could make improvements, and the most important ones will depend on the priorities and needs of the project and its community. Some potential areas for improvement could include:

1. Improving the user experience: Debian is known for its stability and security, but it is not always the easiest distribution to use, especially for new users. Improving the user experience and making Debian more accessible to a wider audience could be an important goal.
2. Keeping up with the rapid pace of change in the software ecosystem: With over 50,000 packages, Debian is a large distribution, and it can be difficult to keep up with the constant stream of updates and new software being released. Developing tools and processes to help manage this complexity and ensure that new packages are tested and integrated smoothly could be an important focus.
3. Maintaining the stability and security of the distribution: Ensuring that Debian remains a stable and secure platform is a top priority for the project. This includes testing new packages thoroughly before they are included in the distribution, responding quickly to security vulnerabilities, and investing in infrastructure and processes to support these efforts.
4. Ensuring the long-term sustainability of the project: Debian is a volunteer-driven project, and it can be challenging to attract and retain contributors over the long term. Developing strategies to support and encourage participation and collaboration within the community could be an important focus.
5. Enhancing the tools and infrastructure that support the project: The Debian project relies on a wide range of tools and infrastructure to support its development and distribution efforts. Improving and modernizing these resources could help to make the project more efficient and effective.

I find that to be a great response, and I m curious where it came from, so I asked How did you come to that conclusion? , it replied:

The list of potential improvements for Debian that I provided is based on my understanding of the challenges and opportunities that software projects like Debian typically face, as well as my understanding of the goals and values of the Debian project. It is not based on any specific information about the current priorities or needs of the Debian project or community.

Well, one thing is for sure, the IRC chat bots of the future are going to be much more complex than the ones I grew up with :-)

From November 2nd to 4th, 2022, the 19th edition of Latinoware - Latin American Congress of Free Software and Open Technologies took place in Foz do Igua u. After 2 years happening online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was back in person and we felt Debian Brasil community should be there. Out last time at Latinoware was in 2016 The Latinoware organization provided the Debian Brazil community with a booth so that we could have contact with people visiting the open exhibition area and thus publicize the Debian project. During the 3 days of the event, the booth was organized by me (Paulo Henrique Santana) as Debian Developer, and by Leonardo Rodrigues as Debian contributor. Unfortunately Daniel Lenharo had an issue and could not travel to Foz do Igua u (we miss you there!). A huge number of people visited the booth, and the beginners (mainly students) who didn't know Debian, asked what our group was about and we explained various concepts such as what Free Software is, GNU/Linux distribution and Debian itself. We also received people from the Brazilian Free Software community and from other Latin American countries who were already using a GNU/Linux distribution and, of course, many people who were already using Debian. We had some special visitors as Jon maddog Hall, Debian Developer Emeritus Ot vio Salvador, Debian Developer Eriberto Mota, and Debian Maintainers Guilherme de Paula Segundo and Paulo Kretcheu. Photo from left to right: Leonardo, Paulo, Eriberto and Ot vio. Photo from left to right: Paulo, Fabian (Argentina) and Leonardo. In addition to talking a lot, we distributed Debian stickers that were produced a few months ago with Debian's sponsorship to be distributed at DebConf22 (and that were left over), and we sold several Debian t-shirts) produced by Curitiba Livre community). We also had 3 talks included in Latinoware official schedule. I) talked about: "how to become a Debian contributor by doing translations" and "how the SysAdmins of a global company use Debian". And Leonardo) talked about: "advantages of Open Source telephony in companies". Photo Paulo in his talk. Many thanks to Latinoware organization for once again welcoming the Debian community and kindly providing spaces for our participation, and we congratulate all the people involved in the organization for the success of this important event for our community. We hope to be present again in 2023. We also thank Jonathan Carter for approving financial support from Debian for our participation at Latinoware. Portuguese version

De 2 a 4 de novembro de 2022 aconteceu a 19 edi o do Latinoware - Congresso Latino-americano de Software Livre e Tecnologias Abertas, em Foz do Igua u. Ap s 2 anos acontecendo de forma online devido a pandemia do COVID-19, o evento voltou a ser presencial e sentimos que a comunidade Debian Brasil deveria estar presente. Nossa ltima participa o no Latinoware foi em 2016 A organiza o do Latinoware cedeu para a comunidade Debian Brasil um estande para que pud ssemos ter contato com as pessoas que visitavam a rea aberta de exposi es e assim divulgarmos o projeto Debian. Durante os 3 dias do evento, o estande foi organizado por mim (Paulo Henrique Santana) como Desenvolvedor Debian, e pelo Leonardo Rodrigues como contribuidor Debian. Infelizmente o Daniel Lenharo teve um imprevisto de ltima hora e n o pode ir para Foz do Igua u (sentimos sua falta l !). V rias pessoas visitaram o estande e aquelas mais iniciantes (principalmente estudantes) que n o conheciam o Debian, perguntavam do que se tratava o nosso grupo e a gente explicava v rios conceitos como o que Software Livre, distribui o GNU/Linux e o Debian propriamente dito. Tamb m recebemos pessoas da comunidade de Software Livre brasileira e de outros pa ses da Am rica Latina que j utilizavam uma distribui o GNU/Linux e claro, muitas pessoas que j utilizavam Debian. Tivemos algumas visitas especiais como do Jon maddog Hall, do Desenvolvedor Debian Emeritus Ot vio Salvador, do Desenvolvedor Debian Eriberto Mota, e dos Mantenedores Debian Guilherme de Paula Segundo e Paulo Kretcheu. Foto da esquerda pra direita: Leonardo, Paulo, Eriberto e Ot vio. Foto da esquerda pra direita: Paulo, Fabian (Argentina) e Leonardo. Al m de conversarmos bastante, distribu mos adesivos do Debian que foram produzidos alguns meses atr s com o patroc nio do Debian para serem distribu dos na DebConf22(e que haviam sobrado), e vendemos v rias camisetas do Debian produzidas pela comunidade Curitiba Livre. Tamb m tivemos 3 palestras inseridas na programa o oficial do Latinoware. Eu fiz as palestras: como tornar um(a) contribuidor(a) do Debian fazendo tradu es e como os SysAdmins de uma empresa global usam Debian . E o Leonardo fez a palestra: vantagens da telefonia Open Source nas empresas . Foto Paulo na palestra. Agradecemos a organiza o do Latinoware por receber mais uma vez a comunidade Debian e gentilmente ceder os espa os para a nossa participa o, e parabenizamos a todas as pessoas envolvidas na organiza o pelo sucesso desse importante evento para a nossa comunidade. Esperamos estar presentes novamente em 2023. Agracemos tamb m ao Jonathan Carter por aprovar o suporte financeiro do Debian para a nossa participa o no Latinoware. Vers o em ingl s

De 2 a 4 de novembro de 2022 aconteceu a 19 edi o do Latinoware - Congresso Latino-americano de Software Livre e Tecnologias Abertas, em Foz do Igua u. Ap s 2 anos acontecendo de forma online devido a pandemia do COVID-19, o evento voltou a ser presencial e sentimos que a comunidade Debian Brasil deveria estar presente. Nossa ltima participa o no Latinoware foi em 2016 A organiza o do Latinoware cedeu para a comunidade Debian Brasil um estande para que pud ssemos ter contato com as pessoas que visitavam a rea aberta de exposi es e assim divulgarmos o projeto Debian. Durante os 3 dias do evento, o estande foi organizado por mim (Paulo Henrique Santana) como Desenvolvedor Debian, e pelo Leonardo Rodrigues como contribuidor Debian. Infelizmente o Daniel Lenharo teve um imprevisto de ltima hora e n o pode ir para Foz do Igua u (sentimos sua falta l !). V rias pessoas visitaram o estande e aquelas mais iniciantes (principalmente estudantes) que n o conheciam o Debian, perguntavam do que se tratava o nosso grupo e a gente explicava v rios conceitos como o que Software Livre, distribui o GNU/Linux e o Debian propriamente dito. Tamb m recebemos pessoas da comunidade de Software Livre brasileira e de outros pa ses da Am rica Latina que j utilizavam uma distribui o GNU/Linux e claro, muitas pessoas que j utilizavam Debian. Tivemos algumas visitas especiais como do Jon maddog Hall, do Desenvolvedor Debian Emeritus Ot vio Salvador, do Desenvolvedor Debian Eriberto Mota, e dos Mantenedores Debian Guilherme de Paula Segundo e Paulo Kretcheu. Foto da esquerda pra direita: Leonardo, Paulo, Eriberto e Ot vio. Foto da esquerda pra direita: Paulo, Fabian (Argentina) e Leonardo. Al m de conversarmos bastante, distribu mos adesivos do Debian que foram produzidos alguns meses atr s com o patroc nio do Debian para serem distribu dos na DebConf22(e que haviam sobrado), e vendemos v rias camisetas do Debian produzidas pela comunidade Curitiba Livre. Tamb m tivemos 3 palestras inseridas na programa o oficial do Latinoware. Eu fiz as palestras: como tornar um(a) contribuidor(a) do Debian fazendo tradu es e como os SysAdmins de uma empresa global usam Debian . E o Leonardo fez a palestra: vantagens da telefonia Open Source nas empresas . Foto Paulo na palestra. Agradecemos a organiza o do Latinoware por receber mais uma vez a comunidade Debian e gentilmente ceder os espa os para a nossa participa o, e parabenizamos a todas as pessoas envolvidas na organiza o pelo sucesso desse importante evento para a nossa comunidade. Esperamos estar presentes novamente em 2023. Agracemos tamb m ao Jonathan Carter por aprovar o suporte financeiro do Debian para a nossa participa o no Latinoware. Vers o em ingl s

From November 2nd to 4th, 2022, the 19th edition of Latinoware - Latin American Congress of Free Software and Open Technologies took place in Foz do Igua u. After 2 years happening online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was back in person and we felt Debian Brasil community should be there. Out last time at Latinoware was in 2016 The Latinoware organization provided the Debian Brazil community with a booth so that we could have contact with people visiting the open exhibition area and thus publicize the Debian project. During the 3 days of the event, the booth was organized by me (Paulo Henrique Santana) as Debian Developer, and by Leonardo Rodrigues as Debian contributor. Unfortunately Daniel Lenharo had an issue and could not travel to Foz do Igua u (we miss you there!). A huge number of people visited the booth, and the beginners (mainly students) who didn't know Debian, asked what our group was about and we explained various concepts such as what Free Software is, GNU/Linux distribution and Debian itself. We also received people from the Brazilian Free Software community and from other Latin American countries who were already using a GNU/Linux distribution and, of course, many people who were already using Debian. We had some special visitors as Jon maddog Hall, Debian Developer Emeritus Ot vio Salvador, Debian Developer Eriberto Mota, and Debian Maintainers Guilherme de Paula Segundo and Paulo Kretcheu. Photo from left to right: Leonardo, Paulo, Eriberto and Ot vio. Photo from left to right: Paulo, Fabian (Argentina) and Leonardo. In addition to talking a lot, we distributed Debian stickers that were produced a few months ago with Debian's sponsorship to be distributed at DebConf22 (and that were left over), and we sold several Debian t-shirts) produced by Curitiba Livre community). We also had 3 talks included in Latinoware official schedule. I) talked about: "how to become a Debian contributor by doing translations" and "how the SysAdmins of a global company use Debian". And Leonardo) talked about: "advantages of Open Source telephony in companies". Photo Paulo in his talk. Many thanks to Latinoware organization for once again welcoming the Debian community and kindly providing spaces for our participation, and we congratulate all the people involved in the organization for the success of this important event for our community. We hope to be present again in 2023. We also thank Jonathan Carter for approving financial support from Debian for our participation at Latinoware. Portuguese version

The voting period and tally of votes for the Debian Project Leader election has just concluded, and the winner is Jonathan Carter, who has been elected for third time. Congratulations! The new term for the project leader starts on 2022-04-21. 354 of 1,023 Developers voted using the Condorcet method. More information about the results of the voting are available on the Debian Project Leader Elections 2022 page. Many thanks to Felix Lechner, Jonathan Carter and Hideki Yamane for their campaigns, and to our Developers for voting.

Here s a bunch of uploads for September. Mostly catching up with a few things after the Bullseye release. 2021-09-01: Upload package bundlewrap (4.11.2-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-01: Upload package calamares (3.2.41.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-01: Upload package g-disk (1.0.8-2) to Debian unstable (Closes: #993109). 2021-09-01: Upload package bcachefs-tools (0.1+git20201025.742dbbdb-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #976474). 2021-09-02: Upload package fabulous (0.4.0+dfsg1-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #983247). 2021-09-02: Upload package feed2toot (0.17-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-02: Merge MR!1 for fracplanet.2021-09-02:2021-09-02: 2021-09-02: Upload package fracplanet (0.5.1-6) to Debian unstable (Closes: #980808). 2021-09-02: Upload package toot (0.28.0-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-02: Upload package toot (0.28.0-2) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-02: Merge MR!1 for gnome-shell-extension-gamemode. 2021-09-02: Merge MR!1 for gnome-shell-extension-no-annoyance. 2021-09-02: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-no-annoyance (0+20210717-12dc667) to Debian unstable (Closes: #993193). 2021-09-02: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-gamemode (5-2) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-02: Merge MR!2 for gnome-shell-extension-harddisk-led. 2021-09-02: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-pixelsaver (1.24-2) to Debian unstable (Closes: #993195). 2021-09-02: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-dash-to-panel (43-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #993058, #989546). 2021-09-02: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-harddisk-led (25-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #993181). 2021-09-02: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-impatience (0.4.5+git20210412-e8e132f-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #993190). 2021-09-02: Upload package s-tui (1.1.3-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-02: Upload package flask-restful (0.3.9-2) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-02: Upload package python-aniso8601 (9.0.1-2) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-03: Sponsor package fonts-jetbrains-mono (2.242+ds-1) for Debian unstable (Debian Mentors request). 2021-09-03: Sponsor package python-toml (0.10.2-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2021-09-03: Sponsor package buildbot (3.3.0-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2021-09-03: Sponsor package python-strictyaml (1.4.4-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2021-09-03: Sponsor package python-absl (0.13.0-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2021-09-03: Merge MR!1 for xabacus. 2021-09-03: Upload package aalib (1.4p5-49) to Debian unstable (Closes: #981503). 2021-09-03: File ROM for gnome-shell-extension-remove-dropdown-arrows (#993577, closing: #993196). 2021-09-03: Upload package bcachefs-tools (0.1+git20210805.6c42566-2) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-05: Upload package tuxpaint (0.9.26-1~exp1) to Debian experimental. 2021-09-05: Upload package tuxpaint-config (0.17rc1-1~exp1) to Debian experimental. 2021-09-05: Upload package tuxpaint-stamps (2021.06.28-1~exp1) to Debian experimental (Closes: #988347). 2021-09-05: Upload package tuxpaint-stamps (2021.06.28-1) to Debian experimental. 2021-09-05: Upload package tuxpaint (0.9.26-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #942889). 2021-09-06: Merge MR!2 for connectagram. 2021-09-06: Upload package connectagram (1.2.11-2) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-06: Upload package aalib (1.4p5-50) to Debian unstable (Closes: #993729). 2021-09-06: Upload packag gdisk (1.0.8-3) to Debian unstable (Closes: #993732). 2021-09-06: Upload package tuxpaint-config (0.17rc1-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-06: Upload package grapefruit (0.1_a3+dfsg-10) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-07: File ROM for gnome-shell-extension-hide-activities (). 2021-09-09: Upload package calamares (3.2.42-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-09: Upgraded peertube.debian.social to PeerTube 3.4.0. 2021-09-17: Upload calamares (3.2.43-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-09-28: Upload calamares (3.2.44.2-1) to Debian unstable.

Several issues were brought before the Debian Community team regarding responsiveness, tone, and needed software updates to forums.debian.net. The question was asked, who s in charge? Over the course of the discussion several Debian Developers volunteered to help by providing a presence on the forums from Debian and to assist with the necessary changes to keep the service up and running. We are happy to announce the following changes to the (NEW!) forums.debian.net, which have and should address most of the prior concerns with accountability, tone, use, and reliability: Debian Developers: Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana (phls), Felix Lechner (lechner), and Donald Norwood (donald) have been added to the forum's Server and Administration teams. The server instance is now running directly within Debian's infrastructure. The forum software and back-end have been updated to the most recent versions where applicable. DNS resolves for both IPv4 and IPv6. SSL/HTTPS are enabled. (It s 2021!) New Captcha and Anti-spam systems are in place to thwart spammers, bots, and to make it easier for humans to register. New Administrators and Moderation staff were added to provide additional coverage across the hours and to combine years of experience with forum operation and Debian usage. New viewing styles are available for users to choose from, some of which are ideal for mobile/tablet viewing. We inadvertently fixed the time issue that the prior forum had of running 11 minutes fast. :) We have clarified staff roles and staff visibility. Responsiveness to users on the forums has increased. Email addresses for mods/admins have been updated and checked for validity, it has seen direct use and response. The guidelines for forum use by users and staff have been updated. The Debian COC has been made into a Global Announcement as an accompanyist to the newly updated guidelines to give the moderators/administrators an additional rule-set for unruly or unbecoming behavior. Some of the discussion areas have been renamed and refocused, along with the movement of multiple threads to make indexing and searching of the forums easier. Many (New!) features and extensions have been added to the forum for ease of use and modernization, such as a user thanks system and thread hover previews. There are some server administrative tasks that were upgraded as well which don't belong on a public list, but we are backing up regularly and secure. :) We have a few minor details here and there to attend to and the work is ongoing. Many Thanks and Appreciation to the Debian System Administrators (DSA) and Ganneff who took the time to coordinate and assist with the instance, DNS, and network and server administration minutiae, our helpful DPL Jonathan Carter, many thanks to the current and prior forum moderators and administrators: Mez, sunrat, 4D696B65, arochester, and cds60601 for helping with the modifications and transition, and to the forum users who participated in lots of the tweaking. All in all this was a large community task and everyone did a significant part. Thank you!

Here are some uploads for April. 2021-04-06: Upload package bundlewrap (4.7.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-04-06: Upload package calamares (3.2.39.2-1) to Debian experimental. 2021-04-06: Upload package flask-caching (1.10.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-04-06: Upload package xabacus (8.3.5-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-04-06: Upload package python-aniso8601 (9.0.1-1) to Debian experimental. 2021-04-07: Upload package gdisk (1.0.7-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-04-07: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-disconnect-wifi (28-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-04-07: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-draw-on-your-screen (11-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-04-12: Upload package s-tui (1.1.1-1) to Debian experimental. 2021-04-12: Upload package speedtest-cli (2.1.3-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-04-19: Spnsor package bitwise (0.42-1) to Debian unstable (E-mail request). 2021-04-19: Upload package speedtest-cli (2.1.3-2) to Debian unstable. 2021-04-23: Upload package speedtest-cli (2.0.2-1+deb10u2) to Debian buster (Closes: #986637)

The voting period and tally of votes for the Debian Project Leader election has just concluded, and the winner is Jonathan Carter! 455 of 1,018 Developers voted using the Condorcet method. More information about the results of the voting are available on the Debian Project Leader Elections 2021 page. Many thanks to Jonathan Carter and Sruthi Chandran for their campaigns, and to our Developers for voting.

The last few weeks was really tough time-wise due to a whole bunch of personal things requiring attention. At least that is cooling down now, in the meantime, here s last monght s uploads (16 days late, yikes!). Hope everyone is doing well out there. 2021-02-02: Upload package python-strictyaml (1.1.1-2) to Debian unstable (Initial source-only upload). 2021-02-03: Upload package bundlewrap (4.4.2-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-02-03: Upload package python-aniso8601 (8.1.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-02-15: Upload package desktop-base (11.0.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-02-15: Upload package rootskel-gtk (11.0.1) to Debian unstable. 2021-02-16: Upload package btfs (2.24-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-02-16: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-multi-monitors (23-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-02-16: Upload package xabacus (8.3.4-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-02-19: Upload package bundlewrap (4.5.0-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-02-19: Upload package calamares (3.2.36-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-02-19: Upload package calamares (3.2.36-1~bpo10+1) to Debian buster-backports. 2021-02-19: Upload package bundlewrap (4.5.1-1) to Debian unstable.

Yikes, my head is still spinning from what a crazy month January was. Only managed to squeeze in a few uploads. I ve also been working on an annual DPL summary that I got to about 80% in December and was barely able to touch it during January, might end up simplifying it just so that I can get it released. In the meantime there s a lot of interesting stuff happening, stay tuned :) 2021-01-08: Sponsor package python-strictyaml (1.1.1-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2021-01-12: Sponsor package buildbot (2.10.0-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2021-01-12: Sponsor package peewee (3.14.0+dfsg-2) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2021-01-12: Sponsor package crashtest (0.3.1-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2021-01-12: Sponsor package sqlobject (3.9.0+dfsg-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2021-01-12: Upload package kpmcore (29.12.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-01-12: Upload package xabacus (8.3.2-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-01-13: Upload package partitionmanager (20.12.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2021-01-13: Review package clikit (Waiting on dependencies) (Python team request). 2021-01-26: Upload package gdisk (1.0.6-1) to Debian unstable.

Krebs on Security has an informative article about web notifications and how they are being used for spamming and promoting malware [1]. He also includes links for how to permanently disable them. If nothing else clicking no on each new site that wants to send notifications is annoying. Michael Stapelberg wrote an insightful posts about inefficiencies in the Debian development processes [2]. While I agree with most of his assessment of Debian issues I am not going to decrease my involvement in Debian. Of the issues he mentions the 2 that seem to have the best effort to reward ratio are improvements to mailing list archives (to ideally make it practical to post to lists without subscribing and read responses in the archives) and the issues of forgetting all the complexities of the development process which can be alleviated by better Wiki pages. In my Debian work I ve contributed more to the Wiki in recent times but not nearly as much as I should. Jacobin has an insightful article Ending Poverty in the United States Would Actually Be Pretty Easy [3]. Mark Brown wrote an interesting blog post about the Rust programming language [4]. He links to a couple of longer blog posts about it. Rust has some great features and I ve been meaning to learn it. Scientific America has an informative article about research on the spread of fake news and memes [5]. Something to consider when using social media. Bruce Schneier wrote an insightful blog post on whether there should be limits on persuasive technology [6]. Jonathan Dowland wrote an interesting blog post about git rebasing and lab books [7]. I think it s an interesting thought experiment to compare the process of developing code worthy of being committed to a master branch of a VCS to the process of developing a Ph.D thesis. CBS has a disturbing article about the effect of Covid19 on people s lungs [8]. Apparently it usually does more lung damage than long-term smoking and even 70%+ of people who don t have symptoms of the disease get significant lung damage. People who live in heavily affected countries like the US now have to worry that they might have had the disease and got lung damage without knowing it. Russ Allbery wrote an interesting review of the book Because Internet about modern linguistics [9]. The topic is interesting and I might read that book at some future time (I have many good books I want to read). Jonathan Carter wrote an interesting blog post about CentOS Streams and why using a totally free OS like Debian is going to be a better option for most users [10]. Linus has slammed Intel for using ECC support as a way of segmenting the market between server and desktop to maximise profits [11]. It would be nice if a company made a line of Ryzen systems with ECC RAM support, but most manufacturers seem to be in on the market segmentation scam. Russ Allbery wrote an interesting review of the book Can t Even about millenials as the burnout generation and the blame that the corporate culture deserves for this [12].

• [1] https://tinyurl.com/y37jh9t4
• [2] https://tinyurl.com/y45o88ma
• [3] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/12/broke-in-america-ending-us-poverty
• [4] https://tinyurl.com/y98llves
• [5] https://tinyurl.com/yy67g9nq
• [6] https://tinyurl.com/y99wjkvx
• [7] https://jmtd.net/log/git_rebasing_and_lab_books/
• [8] https://tinyurl.com/yy6l22x4
• [9] https://tinyurl.com/yxtwtbhe
• [10] https://jonathancarter.org/2020/12/10/centos-stream-or-debian/
• [11] https://tinyurl.com/y3kolzzs
• [12] https://tinyurl.com/y4v9xglj

Here s a list of some Debian packaging work for December 2020. 2020-12-01: Sponsor package mangohud (0.6.1-1) for Debian unstable (mentors.debian.net request). 2020-12-01: Sponsor package spyne (2.13.16-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-01: Sponsor package python-xlrd (1.2.0-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-01: Sponsor package buildbot for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-08: Upload package calamares (3.2.35.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-09: Upload package btfs (2.23-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-09: Upload package feed2toot (0.15-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-09: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-harddisk-led (23-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-10: Upload package feed2toot (0.16-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-10: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-harddisk-led (24-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-13: Upload package xabacus (8.3.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-14: Upload package python-aniso8601 (8.1.0-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-19: Upload package rootskel-gtk (1.42) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-21: Sponsor package goverlay (0.4.3-1) for Debian unstable (mentors.debian.net request). 2020-12-21: Sponsor package pastel (0.2.1-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-22: Sponsor package python-requests-toolbelt (0.9.1-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-22: Upload kpmcore (20.12.0-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-26: Upload package bundlewrap (4.3.0-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-12-26: Review package python-strictyaml (1.1.1-1) (Needs some more work) (Python team request). 2020-12-26: Review package buildbot (2.9.3-1) (Needs some more work) (Python team request). 2020-12-26: Review package python-vttlib (0.9.1+dfsg-1) (Needs some more work) (Python team request). 2020-12-26: Sponsor package python-formencode (2.0.0-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-26: Sponsor package pylev (1.2.0-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-26: Review package python-absl (Needs some more work) (Python team request). 2020-12-26: Sponsor package python-moreorless (0.3.0-2) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-26: Sponsor package peewee (3.14.0+dfsg-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-28: Sponsor package pympler (0.9+dfsg1-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request). 2020-12-28: Sponsor package bidict (0.21.2-1) for Debian unstable (Python team request).

It s the end of CentOS as we know it Earlier this week, the CentOS project announced the shift to CentOS stream. In a nutshell, this means that they will discontinue being a close clone of RHEL along with security updates, and instead it will serve as a development branch of RHEL. As you can probably imagine (or gleam from the comments in that post I referenced), a lot of people are unhappy about this. One particular quote got my attention this morning while catching up on this week s edition of Linux Weekly News, under the distributions quotes section:

I have been doing this for 17 years and CentOS is basically my life s work. This was (for me personally) a heart wrenching decision. However, i see no other decision as a possibility. If there was, it would have been made.Johnny Hughes

I feel really sorry for this person and can empathize, I ve been in similar situations in my life before where I ve poured all my love and energy into something and then due to some corporate or organisational decisions (and usually poor ones), the project got discontinued and all that work that went into it vanishes into the ether. Also, 17 years is really long to be contributing to any one project so I can imagine that this must have been especially gutting.

Throw me a freakin bone here I m also somewhat skeptical of how successful CentOS Stream will really be in any form of a community project. It seems that Red Hat is expecting that volunteers should contribute to their product development for free, and then when these contributors actually want to use that resulting product, they re expected to pay a corporate subscription fee to do so. This seems like a very lop-sided relationship to me, and I m not sure it will be sustainable in the long term. In Red Hat s announcement of CentOS Stream, they kind of throw the community a bone by saying In the first half of 2021, we plan to introduce low- or no-cost programs for a variety of use cases - it seems likely that this will just be for experimental purposes similar to the Windows Insider program and won t be of much use for production users at all. Red Hat does point out that their Universal Base Image (UBI) is free to use and that users could just use that on any system in a container, but this doesn t add much comfort to the individuals and organisations who have contributed huge amounts of time and effort to CentOS over the years who rely on a stable, general-purpose Linux system that can be installed on bare metal.

Way forward for CentOS users Where to from here? I suppose CentOS users could start coughing up for RHEL subscriptions. For many CentOS use cases that won t make much sense. They could move to another distribution, or fork/restart CentOS. The latter is already happening. One of the original founders of the CentOS project, Gregory Kurtzer, is now working on Rocky Linux, which aims to be a new free system built from the RHEL sources. Some people from Red Hat and Canonical are often a bit surprised or skeptical when I point out to them that binary licenses are also important. This whole saga is yet another data point, but it proves that yet again. If Red Hat had from the beginning released RHEL with free sources and unobfuscated patches, then none of this would ve been necessary in the first place. And while I wish Rocky Linux all the success it aims to achieve, I do not think that working for free on a system that ultimately supports Red Hat s selfish eco-system is really productive or helpful. The fact is, Debian is already a free enterprise-scale system already used by huge organisations like Google and many others, which has stable releases, LTS support and ELTS offerings from external organisations if someone really needs it. And while RHEL clones have come and gone through the years, Debian s mission and contract to its users is something that stays consistent and I believe Debian and its ideals will be around for as long as people need Unixy operating systems to run anywhere (i.e. a very long time). While we sometimes fall short of some of our technical goals in Debian, and while we don t always agree on everything, we do tend to make great long-term progress, and usually in the right direction. We ve proved that our method of building a system together is sustainable, that we can do so reliably and timely and that we can collectively support it. From there on it can only get even better when we join forces and work together, because when either individuals or organisations contribute to Debian, they can use the end result for both private or commercial purposes without having to pay any fee or be encumbered by legal gotchas. Don t get caught by greedy corporate motivations that will result in you losing years of your life s work for absolutely no good reason. Make your time and effort count and either contribute to Debian or give your employees time to do so on company time. Many already do and reap the rewards of this, and don t look back. While Debian is a very container and virtualization friendly system, we ve managed to remain a good general-purpose operating system that manages to span use cases so vast that I d have to use a blog post longer than this one just to cover them. And while learning a whole new set of package build chain, package manager and new organisational culture and so on can be uhm, really rocky at the start, I d say that it s a good investment with Debian and unlikely to be time that you ll ever felt was wasted. As Debian project leader, I m personally available to help answer any questions that someone might have if they are interested in coming over to Debian. Feel free to mail leader_AT_debian.org (replace _AT_ with @) or find me on the oftc IRC network with the nick highvoltage. I believe that together, we can make Debian the de facto free enterprise system, and that it would be to the benefit of all its corporate users, instead of tilting all the benefit to just one or two corporations who certainly don t have your best interests in mind.

This month just went past way too fast, didn t get to all the stuff I wanted to, but managed to cover many essentials (not even listed here) that I ll cover in follow-up posts. In particular, highlights that I m thankful for are that we ve selected the final artwork for Bullseye. We ve also successfully hosted another two MiniDebConfs. One that was gaming themed, and a Brazilian event all in Portuguese! Videos are up on Debian s PeerTube instance (Gaming Edition Brazil) and on the DebConf video archive for direct download. Remember to take care of yourself out there! Physical safety is high on everyone s mind in these times, but remember to pay attention to your mental health too. It s ok if you won t hit all your usual targets and goals in these times, don t be too hard on yourself and burn out! 2020-11-01: Upload package gtetrinet (0.7.11+git20200916.46e7ade-2~bpo10+1) to Debian buster-backports. 2020-11-01: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-disconnect-wifi (26-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-02: Merge MR!2, MR!4 and MR!5 for zram-tools, follow 3-way merge closing MR!1 and MR!3. 2020-11-02: Upload package zram-swap (0.3.3-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #917643, #928439, #928443). 2020-11-02: Close live-installer bugs #646704 (fix released a few years ago already), #700642 (nothing left to fix), #835391 (unproducible on latest images), #847446 (graphical d-i installer no longer provided). #714710 (problem not present on latest installation media) 2020-11-02: File ROM for calcoo (#973638) no longer maintained upstream, GTK-2 only. 2020-11-03: Upload package bundlewrap (4.2.2-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-03: Upload package feed2toot (0.14-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-03: Upload package feed2toot (0.14-2) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-03: Upload package flask-autoindex (0.6.6-2) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-03: Upload package flask-caching (1.9.0-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-03: Upload package flask-restful (0.3.8-5) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-08: Upload package s-tui (1.0.2-2) to Debian unstable (Closes: #961534). 2020-11-09: Merge MR!1 for bluefish (remove old icon). 2020-11-10: Upload package bluefish (2.2.12-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-10: Upload package calamares (3.2.33-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-11: Upload package calamares-settings-debian (11.0.4-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-11-17: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-multiple-workspaces (22-1) to Debian-unstable. 2020-11-24: Sponsor package xmodem (0.4.6+dfsg-2) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-11-24: Sponsor package python-opentracing (2.4.0-1) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-11-24: Sponsor package python-css-parser (1.0.6-1) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-11-24: Review package buildbot (2.8.4-1) (Needs some more work) (Python Team request). 2020-11-24: Review package gbsplay (0.0.94-1) (Needs some more work) (Games Team request). 2020-11-24: Sponsor package goverlay (0.4.2-1) for Debian unstable (Games Team request). 2020-11-24: Sponsor package lutris (0.5.8-1) for Debian unstable (Games Team request). 2020-11-24: Review package mangohud (0.5.1-1) for Debian unstable (Needs some more work) (Games Team request). 2020-11-24: Sponsor package vkbasalt (0.3.2.3-1) for Debian unstable (Games Team request). 2020-11-25: Sponsor package starfighter (2.3.3-1) for Debian unstable (Games Team request). 2020-11-25: Sponsor package pentobi (18.3-1) for Debian unstable (Games Team request). 2020-11-30: Sponsor package lutris (0.5.8-1) for Debian unstable (Games Team request) (New upload).

Another month, another bunch of uploads. The freeze for Debian 11 (bullseye) is edging closer, so I ve been trying to get my package list in better shape ahead of that. Thanks to those who worked on fixing lintian.debian.org and the lintian reports on the QA pages, those are immensely useful and it s great to have that back! 2020-10-04: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-draw-on-your-screen (8-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-05: Sponsor package flask-restful (0.3.8-4) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-05: Sponsor package python-potr (1.0.2-3) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-06: Sponsor package python-pyld (2.0.3-1) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-06: Sponsor package flask-openid (1.2.5+dfsg-4) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-06: Sponsor package qosmic (1.6.0-4) for Debian unstable (E-mail request). 2020-10-07: File removal for gnome-shell-extension-workspace-to-dock (RC Buggy, no longer maintained: #971803). 2020-10-07: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-pixelsaver (1.20-2) to Debian unstable (Closes: #971689). 2020-10-07: Upload package calamares (3.2.31-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-07: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-dashtodock (69-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #971654). 2020-10-08: Sponsor package python3-libcloud (3.020-1) for Debian unstable. 2020-10-09: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-dashtopanel (40-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #971087). 2020-10-09: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-draw-on-your-screen (8.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-12: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-pixelsaver (1.24-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-14: Sponsor package python3-onewire (0.2-1) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-15: Sponsor package cheetah (3.2.5-1) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-15: Sponsor package xmodem (0.4.6+dfsg-1) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-15: Sponsor package ansi (0.1.5-1) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-15: Sponsor package cbor2 (5.2.0-1) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-16: Upload package calamares (3.2.32-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-17: Upload package calamares (3.2.32.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-18: Upload package kpmcore (4.2.0-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-18: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-draw-on-your-screen (9-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-18: Upload package bundlewrap (4.2.1-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-18: Upload package bcachefs-tools (0.1+git20201017.8a4408-1~exp1) to Debian experimental. 2020-10-18: Upload package calamares (3.2.32.1-2) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-18: Upload package partitionmanager (4.1.0-2) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-19: Upload package kpmcore (4.2.0-2) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-21: Upload package calamares (3.2.32.1-3) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-21: Upload package calamares-settings-debian (11.0.3-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #969930, #941301). 2020-10-21: Upload package partitionmanager (4.2.0-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-21: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-hard-disk-led (22-1) to Debian unstable (Closes: #971041). 2020-10-21: Merge MR!1 for catimg (Janitor improvements). 2020-10-21: Sponsor package r4d (1.7-1) for Debian unstable (Python Team request). 2020-10-22: Upload package aalib (1.4rc5-47) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-22: Upload package fabulous (0.3.0+dfsg1-8) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-22: Merge MR!1 for gdisk (Janitor improvements). 2020-10-22: Merge MR!1 for gnome-shell-extension-arc-menu (New upstream URLs, thanks Edward Betts). 2020-10-22: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-arc-menu (49-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-22: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-draw-on-your-screen (10-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-22: Merge MR!1 for vim-airline (Janitor improvements). 2020-10-22: Merge MR!1 for vim-airline-themes (Janitor improvements). 2020-10-22: Merge MR!1 for preload (Janitor improvements). 2020-10-22: Upload package aalib (1.4rc5-48) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-22: Upload package gnome-shell-extension-trash (0.2.0-git20200326.3425fcf1-1). 2020-10-26: Upload package bcachefs-tools (0.1+git20201025.742dbbdb-1) to Debian unstable. 2020-10-26: Sponsor package dunst (1.5.0-1) for Debian unstable (mentors.debian.net request).