...awesome.
OK, I'm writing this while I'm still in USA, but there are so many
things to say about these weeks that I can't write them in only one
blog post. And, still, this one will be quite long as it will talk
about hacking, running and sightseeing...:)
Let's start about hacking: after all, this is the first reason for
being there in US, isn't it?
I cam to DebConf with a very long TODO list and, for the first time in
seven DebConfs, I'm pretty happy with what I achieved from it:
- samba packages
- I (shortly) discussed with Steve Langasek about samba packages. He
will have to talk with upstream about 3.6 that unexpectedly drops
symbols in libraries , so that we can upload it in experimental (and
probably also offer a lenny backport)
- We didn't decide yet about the version to have in squeeze. I know,
the freeze happened in the meantime, so we should stick with 3.4.8 but
I'm more and more convinced that we should have 3.5.4 instead as
upstream should stop supporting 3.4 security-wise around June 2011. I
think I can convince the Release Team that 3.4-3.5 upgrade is not to
be disruptive with the freeze.
- I hopefully fixed the 3.5.4 packages for lenny which we have in
our unofficial repository at http://pkg-samba.alioth.debian.org. I
didn't take time to check this properly, though, so feedback will be appreciated.
- Pootle/translate-toolkit/virtaal
- These are usually maintained by Nicolas Fran ois but he has no
time for them. So, I agreed with him that I would release new upstream
versions
- pootle 2.0.5 is now in unstable. I have to work on an RC bug,
still
- translate-toolkit 1.7.0 is now in unstable too
- virtaal: I began working on new upstream release packaging
- backporting: I planned to backport translate-toolkit and pootle as
there is a strong demand for them for lenny servers but the above
mentioned RC bug prevented me to do so
- D-I work
- I partly reviewed and corrected the D-I l10n documentation
- I reviewed and activated new debconf templates added by Otavio
Salvador and Daniel Baumann to live-installer, then called for their
translation
- Support for locales with "@" in their name in localechooser: I
looked at this but I need someone more clever than me in shell
scripting to fix that. Until that's done, I deactivated Serbian
(Latin), unfortunately.
- Various packaging work
- New release for console-data (mostly l10n stuff aimed for D-I)
- Uploaded ttf-dzongkha and ttf-inconsolata to s-p-u to fix two RC
bugs in stable
- Polish tasksel and have Otavio to upload it
- Checked my own packages against Rhonda's list of RC bugs in stable
- Localization work
- Pootle upstream French translation completed, for 2.1.0
- Cleaned out the tracking robot for French l10n in Debian
As one can see, a lot of planned work happened while I still could
maintain the usual flow of recurrent work with localization (Smith
reviews, l10n NMUs).
Some asked me why I didn't propose l10n sessions this year. Indeed, I
wasn't feeling I could sustain animating them and I had no clear idea
about which topic I could bring to be discussed. Last year, these
sessions slightly killed my free time and I wanted to keep some this
year for "impromptu" things.
I didn't attend many talks, sorry for the speakers. The most I
attended were during Debian Day, which I found highlyinteresting and
motivating, just like Eben Moglen's talk. Marga's talk was also one I
wanted to attend, though I regreted that things went mostly out of
control during the talk (too many comments from the audience to allow
Marga pushing her important points).
As usual, I invested a big part of my time in "social" activities, the
most proeminent being of course the Cheese and Wine party, which
turned ut to be a great success. The help of my son Jean-Baptiste and
the tremendous support of Michelle Lynn Hall helped a lot, though I
still regret that we screwed about accessibility.
I also ran a lot..:-)..that may be counted as social activities as I
organized several group runs. The one I'm proud of has been
participating to a local race, namely the Van Cortland Track Club
Summer Series of cross-country running, in Bronx. We went there with
no less than 10 DebConf participants and 1 kilt (hey, Luca!). All of
us completed the race (that had 170 runners for 5 kilometers) and No l
K the even finished 17th scratch and 2nd in his age/gender
category.
Besides that, we had a great run/sightseeing to Georges
Washington Bridge (that links New Jersey and Harlem and offers an
unusual view of Manhattan "from behind"). All this with a 17km
run. We also ran several times in Central Park, and No l and me
happened to go to Coney Island for the Day Trip by doing half of the
trip by running (all around Manhattan and over the Broolyn Bridge),
for about 20km. Then we "showered" in the Atlantic Ocean....:). At the
end of DebConf, I think that I had my record broken with 112km run in
10 days and only one day *without* running.
What about sightseeing? Well, this blog post is too long and we reach
the end of Interstate-90, close to Albany, so that will be for an
upcoming blog post.
Aug 25th update: back home, so now I can publish this blog post...
As Christian