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diff --git a/news/2010-09.mdwn b/news/2010-09.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 00000000..737a23a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/news/2010-09.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,126 @@ +[[!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. :-) + +"""]] |