zack's home page/ blog/ posts/ 2012/ 10/ bits from the DPL for September 2012

Just posted to d-d-a, bits from the DPL for Septemer 2012.

Heya,
here is the periodic report of DPL activities, this time related to September 2012 (posted here with some delay, as I've been traveling oversea on behalf of Debian for the past few days).

Help needed: Google Code-In

The Google Code-In (GCI) initiative is about to start again. We don't have a great track record of participating into it, and that's a pity. The initiative revolves around small tasks that other Free Software projects have come to call "easy hacks", showing how effective they're in attracting new volunteers. To participate, we need both mentors and admins. If you're interested see Ana's call for help and please volunteer on the soc-coordination list.

Related to this, you've probably seen the report of our participation in GSoC 2012. I'd like to thank all students, mentors, and admins for a very well organized edition.

Logo relicensing & other assets

The DFSG-relicensing of the Debian logo, which I've mentioned in recent updates, has now happened. The so called Debian "Open Use" logo, in both variants (with and without "Debian") is now dually licensed under LGPL3+ / CC-BY-SA 3.0. The change has been made effective with a resolution of the SPI Board of Directors.

Note that the so called "official" logo, which we seem to use very little, is still released under the terms of a non-free license. Discussion is ongoing on -project to stop promoting it. If you're using it or if you've arguments in favor of against that, please participate in the discussion.

I've got from SFLC an updated draft of the new proposed trademark policy, implementing most of the changes requested during related August discussions on -project. I'll post it for review there shortly.

The Japanese Trademark Office (JPO) has sent us the final confirmation that trademark transfer request (from individuals Debian contributors in the area to SPI) has happened. We've paid the needed fee of 457 CHF to conclude the transaction.

We finally settled a domain transfer agreement with the current owner of the debian.eu. Technically, the domain will be transferred to FFIS in the coming weeks.

Core teams (non-)news

Quite some core teams are in the process of changing their formations these weeks, but most are still pending proper delegation (or equivalent). So here are just a few "teasers":

  • as you might have read in the ftp-master sprint report, we have a new ftp-master: congrats Ansgar! (delegation update pending, but no suspense here)

  • we have a new front-desk member (delegation pending + suspense)

  • we have a new debian policy team (delegation pending + suspense)

  • the tech-ctte is in the process of selecting a new candidate to fill the vacant seat. I've nominated a couple of candidates myself, and I'm now waiting for tech-ctte recommendations as per Constitution §6.2.

    On related news, the tech-ctte has now dealt with the conflict on Python interpreter maintenership, which was also the longest standing issue brought before them. Having invested quite some energy in that issue myself, I'm delighted to see it finally addressed.

I hope to finalize all the pending tasks above this month.

Future events

I've spent quite some time to plan my participation in events I'll be attending during October on behalf of Debian, such as the ACM Reflections conference in Urbana-Champaign (at the time of writing, this has already happened), the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Copenhagen, and the LinuxDay event in Turin.

Cheers.

PS the day-to-day activity log for September 2012 is available at the usual place master:/srv/leader/news/bits-from-the-DPL.txt.201209