blog/archives/2012/09zack's home pagehttp://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/archives/2012/09/zack's home pageikiwiki2012-09-20T09:20:44Zbits from the DPL for August 2012http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2012/09/bits_from_the_DPL_for_August_2012/2012-09-20T09:20:44Z2012-09-19T10:06:42Z
<p>DPL August report, <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/09/msg00002.html">
posted on d-d-a</a> a while ago (yep, I forgot to blog it up to
now!, sorry for the oldies).</p>
<hr />
<p>Dear project members, August has been a month with a good deal
of vacations for many of us, including yours truly. Therefore the
monthly report of DPL activities will be briefer than usual. Which
is good, as it'll leave all my readers more time to do NMUs and fix
RC bugs!</p>
<h1>Ongoing discussions</h1>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/07/msg00047.html">Discussion</a>
about the new trademark policy has continued on -project. I've
collected quite some feedback and summarized it in a request for
change that I've passed on to SFLC. I'm waiting for a second draft
from them, before reviving the thread.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>on the long-running issue of de-duplicating DebConf
infrastructure wrt Debian's, I've been happy to support the
<a href="http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20120820.110812.1ec7d44b.en.html">
proposal</a> of moving DebConf's list to Debian's software and
infrastructure. There seems to be interest and consensus, but the
DebConf team could probably use a couple more helping hands to make
it real</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>starting from the practical need of dealing with minified
JavaScript files, an interesting <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/08/msg00365.html">discussion</a>
sparkled on -devel. It quickly turned in both musing on the notion
of archive-wide DFSG-freeness and some new devscript tooling by
Andreas Tille. AFAIU some extra testing would be welcome</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h1>Assets</h1>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The DFGS-free logo relicensing I've mentioned last month is now
on its way. Following advice from SFLC, I've slightly patched the
current trademark policy (mainly to clarify scope), just enough to
decouple logo relicensing under LGPLv3/CC-BY-SA 3.0 from the
finalization of a new trademark policy (see above). I've also
verified that the license choice is fine with teams that regularly
deal with the logos. Ball is now in SPI camp (as copyright holder).
They should finalize the relicensing during the forthcoming board
meeting, on September 13th.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>We heard back from the trademark office in Japan, who accepted
our request to transfer it from local Debian contributors to SPI.
That being mainly a bureaucratic acknowledgement, we'll now need to
way for a while until they confirm the transfer has been finalized.
My eternal thanks for help with this matter goes to Kenshi
Muto.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h1>Core teams</h1>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Manoj Srivastava has stepped down as tech-ctte member. I hereby
thank him for his long and valuable service in that capacity. The
tech-ctte has now one vacant seat, and I've encouraged present
tech-ctte members to propose to me a suitable candidate. In an
attempt to promote diversity of views within the tech-ctte, they
are now considering various ways to solicit candidatures. You'll
hear from them about this soon, I suspect.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>In the meantime, monthly IRC meetings of the tech-ctte are
continuing, as you might have noticed from tech-ctte decision
reports posted on this list. As it seemed to be lingering, at the
last meeting I've <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-ctte/2012/08/msg00084.html">solicited</a>
progress on the <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/573745">Python
maintenance issue</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The auditors have noticed the unclear situation of the Policy
Editor delegation, which seems to rely on a "base" delegation
dating back to Antony Towns' office and various subsequent
delegation "patches". After discussion with Russ Allbery I've then
proceeded to a <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2012/08/msg00058.html">public
"ping"</a> to assess the interest of current editors in continuing
their work in such capacity, and encourage new volunteers to apply
as editors. Based on the feedback I've got, I'm now preparing a new
Policy Editor delegation.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h1>Legal and RC fun</h1>
<ul>
<li>Solicited by Jonathan Nieder and Helge Kreutzmann, I've looked
into #555168 and sought legal advice to answer various questions
related to the non-copyrightability of locale data. Aaron
Williamson of SFLC has been blazing fast in answering them
(thanks!), and Jonathan and Helge has now all the needed
information to help addressing that (RC) issue. Keep an eye on the
<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/555168">bug log</a> for more
details.</li>
</ul>
<h1>Hardware</h1>
<ul>
<li>I've approved buying 6 console servers to improve DSA ability
to act on remote machines, without having to bother^Wrely on local
admins when not strictly needed. ~550 USD well spent.</li>
</ul>
<p>See? It's been quick(er)!</p>
<p>Talk to you here next month, with a much lower count of Wheezy
RC Bugs on the horizon, hopefully.<br />
Cheers.</p>
<hr />
<p>PS the boring day-to-day activity log for August 2012 is
available at
<code>master:/srv/leader/news/bits-from-the-DPL.txt.201208</code></p>