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+[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]
+
+[[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable
+id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
+document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
+any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
+Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license
+is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation
+License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]
+
+A month of the Hurd: *new translators* / *bug fixing*.
+[[!if test="included()" then="""[[!toggle id=full_news
+text="Details."]][[!toggleable id=full_news text="[[!paste id=full_news]]"]]"""
+else="
+[[!paste id=full_news]]"]]
+
+[[!cut id="full_news" text="""
+
+Yes, we're a bit late this month.  Arne Babenhauserheide, the guy who has
+started and has been drafting the *Month of the Hurd* ever since June 2010
+(yes, that one and a half years already!), moves on to other duties -- his wife
+has given birth to our first Hurd developer offspring (as far as I know):
+
+> Last friday my son Leandro entered our cold and too bright but friendly
+> world, [...]
+
+We wish them good luck for their new parental duty!
+
+The other guy, Thomas Schwinge, who has been editing and publishing the *Month
+of the Hurd* will take over -- at least temporarily (mind you, Arne).
+
+But, we got some Hurd news, too.
+
+Olaf Buddenhagen posted a patch that allows to [obtain number of ports in proc
+and libps](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00036.html) by
+means of adding a new [[RPC]] -- and subsequently held a discussion with Samuel
+Thibault who proposed that instead of adding such functionality on an [ad hoc
+basis](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00044.html), a
+more generic solution could be found, too.  In the end, they agreed that this
+functionality was useful enough, and the patch was
+[committed](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/commit-hurd/2010-09/msg00031.html).
+
+It is important to spend time on designing proper interfaces (RPCs in this
+case), but on the other hand what we're doing now need not be set in stone
+forever, as Olaf
+[explains](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00045.html):
+
+> Well, we already have a mechanism for making communication protocols in
+> the Hurd extensible: it's called the RPC mechanism... :-) Let's not try
+> to invent another generic mechanism on top of RPCs.
+> 
+> *If* ten year down the road we indeed end up with half a dozen
+> miscallaneous info queries, we can *still* replace them by a new RPC
+> covering all of it...
+
+Thomas Schwinge [moved some
+packages](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00031.html)
+([[hurd/translator/gopherfs]], [[hurd/translator/netio]],
+[[hurd/translator/tarfs]]) from hurdextras to the Hurd's
+[[source_repositories/incubator]] repository; these are now available as
+[[Debian GNU/Hurd packages|hurd/running/debian]].  Manuel Menal also spent time
+on actually making tarfs and good ol' gopherfs usable.
+
+Similar treatment [has been
+applied](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00055.html) to
+Jérémie Koenig's new [[procfs|hurd/translator/procfs/jkoenig]] implementation;
+this one is now [used in Debian
+GNU/Hurd](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/commit-hurd/2010-09/msg00063.html).
+
+Jérémie found some [problems with signal
+delivery](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00006.html) --
+signals apparently are not delivered as expected.  Roland McGrath, this *hairy
+code*'s original author, [provided some
+insight](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00008.html):
+
+> It's not that it's a bug, it's that the Hurd has never had POSIX-1996
+> multithreaded signal semantics.  The Hurd implementation predates those
+> specifications.
+
+He [continued to
+explain](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00010.html):
+
+> The Hurd signal semantics are well-defined
+> today.  They are not the POSIX-1996 semantics in the presence of multiple
+> threads per process.
+
+This explains for differences comparing to other recent Unixy systems, for
+example Linux.  Neal Walfield, our [[libpthread]]'s main author,
+[states](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00017.html) that
+he sees *no convincing reason to not adopt POSIX/Linux signal semantics and
+abandon Hurd signal semantics*.  Jérémie went on to [send a first
+patch](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00011.html).
+While already working in that area, Samuel Thibault applied some further fixes
+to our two threading libraries, and among others, he also sent a related glibc
+patch to [fix signal-catching
+functions](http://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2010-09/msg00015.html).  And
+then, there is still the project about [[converting the Hurd's libraries and
+servers to using libpthread instead of Mach's cthreads
+(libthreads)|community/gsoc/project_ideas/pthreads]]; likely such signalling
+system moderizations could be done [alongside of
+that](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00021.html).
+
+Manuel Menal [fixed a
+bug](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00061.html) that
+occurred when sending file descriptors with `SCM_RIGHTS` over `PF_LOCAL`
+sockets.  He also determined this bug to be the reason that the SSH daemon's
+privilege separation was not working on GNU/Hurd -- now [this is
+fixed](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/commit-hurd/2010-09/msg00036.html) and
+you can use the default of `UsePrivilegeSeparation yes`.
+
+Michael Banck has, based on user feedback, applied some changes to the
+[[!debpkg crosshurd]] package, and [uploaded a new
+version](http://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2010/09/msg00037.html).
+
+In other news, the [[hurd/running/Arch_Hurd]] guys rightfully concluded that
+now that they're having a package available for almighty GNU Emacs, [no further
+user-land packages need to be
+ported](http://blogs.archhurd.org/hayashi/2010/09/04/emacs-emacs/).  If only
+everyone was using Emacs...
+
+Last, and least, [there are
+rumors](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-09/msg00026.html) about
+our colleagues over at the Duke Nukem Forever department getting serious again.
+We shall see.  :-)
+
+"""]]