OpenCSW

Adobe Reader available

Dagobert Michelsen — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:41:03 +0000

We have just received the license from Adobe to distribute the Adobe Reader. As Adobe switched development from Solaris Sparc to Solaris x86 there are different versions available for each platform:

Adobe Reader 8 for Solaris Sparc
Adobe Reader 9 for Solaris x86

Have fun with CSWadobereader !

Technical Summer Camp 2010: Paris

bwalton — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:49:10 +0000

The OpenCSW developers are about to gather for the next Camp session. This time, it’s just outside Paris in Puteaux, graciously hosted by William. In a weekend blitz during spanning 14th and 15th of August, several project members will be hacking on packages and other supporting code/tools. Additionally, there are a handful of important topics on the agenda that will benefit greatly from face-to-face discussions.

You can watch the live feed or follow things on twitter.

(From left to right: Maciej Blizinski, Dagobert Michelsen, Dominique Laigle, William Bonnet, Peter Felecan, Ihsan Dogan)

Pkgutil 2.1 released

bonivart — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:31:39 +0000

Pkgutil 2.1 was released 2010-07-28. Change log:

Option to suppress list of current packages
Shows number of packages, e.g. 24 CURRENT packages
Faster checking if a package is installed
Safe file and dir creations in pkgutil, bldcat and chkcat
More complete support for alternate root path
Documentation fixes
Add mask to mkdir to restore compatibility with Perl 5.5.3 in Solaris 8 (Thomas Pawlikaniec)
Add pkgutil to signal handler output
Clean version fields from non-digits during compares (Mark Bannister)
Fix detecting end of REV list during compares (Mark Bannister)
Fix bug with packages containing dashes when using remove
Fix bug with -x, now uses pattern just like in pkgutil.conf
Add GNU stub to bldcat and chkcat
bldcat: add missing -W in perldoc/man page
bldcat: fix bug with trailing slash on package dir
bldcat: fix bug with package dir being included in filename (Mark Bannister)

Compiling on Solaris

Dagobert Michelsen — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:27:25 +0000

In the old days if some open source project was an easy compile it was on Solaris. Nowadays, as most development is done on Linux, compiling on Solaris can be challenging. This is not because maintainers don’t want to write portable software, but because they don’t have access to a Solaris system. The three most important things for a packing project are IMHO:

1. Make sure the upstream software compiles smoothly on Solaris

2. If 1. is not possible: publish the patches to allow compilation on Solaris

3. Deliver the binary package for the software

Working with upstream is the most important thing: to make software easily compilable on Solaris without massive patching and to give every Solaris user the opportunity to compile it themselves without hassle. To achieve this we give upstream projects access to the OpenCSW buildfarm. At the moment 30 projects are using the farm. If you are an upstream developer and want access please mail to buildfarm@opencsw.org.

As I said compiling on Solaris can be challenging. To not waste efforts it is imperative to share the knowledge how to build it. You can find the build recipes and patches for OpenCSW packages in the GAR repository.

…and of course we provide binary packages as always.

The latest addition to the list of projects using the farm are Critical Mass Modula 3 to help porting it to Solaris x86. This will finally allow running CVSup on both flavors of Solaris. Expect a package soon!

GNOME refresh under way: want to help?

Phil Brown — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:27:20 +0000

At long last, we are starting to refresh our GNOME libraries, and eventually, top level GNOME programs as well.
We hope to publish a modern “gedit” very soon. (in a few days)

We could very much use additional volunteers, either as packagers, or just volunteering to test packages before official release. Please let us know, either by contacting your favourite maintainer, or posting on the users list, or using the maintainer signup page.

Technical Wintercamp 2009: Munich

Sebastian Kayser — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:57:59 +0000

It’s almost the time of the year again when we OpenCSW maintainers gather for our half-yearly technical camp (this time to be held in Paris). A welcome occasion to discuss and coordinate current issues and also to meet up with fellow maintainers in person. Not to speak of the opportunity to visit a foreign capital city, as that’s where one of our maintainers usually hosts the event. But I am getting ahead of myself, time to catch up on the happenings of the last camp, which took place in Lenggries near Munich, Germany earlier this year.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

As always, the agenda was more than enough to fill the weekend. Starting on Friday we drove into the snow-packed Alps where we would spend the following two days tucked away in a small conference hotel, pondering about the release process (working towards a new stable, yes), our new website (recently published), Perl vs. Python in our toolchain (nested datastructures, sounds familiar?), and testing live streaming via ustream.tv to integrate our maintainers from overseas.

Discussions were lively and fruitful and many of the developed ideas are starting to form into reality. Perfect time to gather again. New maintainers and interested users are always welcome. Living close to Paris and interested to get in touch with us? Let us know (via IRC or email) and join us for Summer Camp 2010!

Security release – Firefox 3.0.14 is available

William Bonnet — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:54:44 +0000

Several vulnerabilities have been fixed by the latest security release of Firefox 3.0 ( 3.0.14 ). The list of fixed vulnerabilities is available from here Mozilla’s security advisories page

Fixed issues in Firefox 3.0.14 are :

MFSA 2009-51 Chrome privilege escalation with FeedWriter
MFSA 2009-50 Location bar spoofing via tall line-height Unicode characters
MFSA 2009-49 TreeColumns dangling pointer vulnerability
MFSA 2009-48 Insufficient warning for PKCS11 module installation and removal
MFSA 2009-47 Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.9.1.3/1.9.0.14)

Security release – Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 is available

William Bonnet — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:15:44 +0000

Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 has been released to current. This version resolve the following critical issues :

MFSA 2009-43 Heap overflow in certificate regexp parsing
MFSA 2009-42 Compromise of SSL-protected communication

Technical Summercamp 2009: Oslo

Dagobert Michelsen — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:23:36 +0000

The technical summercamp 2009 took place in Oslo on the 22. and 23. August 2009. We had a lot to talk about as you see on the Agenda which resulted in the minutes from the summercamp. As you can see the location Trygve got for us was deep in the woods and had a marvellous view:

Back: Maciej, Peter, Ihsan, Trygve
Front: William, Dagobert, Sebastian

Check out all the camp pictures below:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

OpenOffice 3.1 is released

William Bonnet — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:05:35 +0000

We are pleased to announce a major version update for OpenOffice Suite. Current catalog now provides version 3.1