Bug Squashing Party next weekend, October 28 - 30

Hi.

Since the last Bug Squashing Party (BSP) we managed to keep the number of
release critical bugs from growing which is better than we did after the
one before but certainly not good enough. We have still about 380 RC bugs
open against packages that are also in testing (and a good amount of other
RC bug fixes that were already uploaded is still tied up behind KDE and Qt
in unstable).

So it's time for another BSP, next weekend, October 28th - 30th.
Coordination will happen over IRC channel #debian-bugs on
irc.debian.org as usual.

Unlike shortly before sarge release there should be plenty of bugs
for all levels of complexity, programming language skills and
time requirements. So if you never attended to a BSP before and
want to help, _now_ is the right time to start. The RC Bug Squashing
HOWTO[1] by Steve Langasek gives a good introduction and is probably
a must-read for beginners. But don't hesitate to ask questions in
#debian-bugs, we will be eager to get you to do some work :)
Non-DDs can also easily contribute by creating patches and/or
testing existing ones. Just send them to the related bug report,
a DD can easily pick it up from there.
See also the end of this mail for a list of useful links.

[1] http://people.debian.org/~vorlon/rc-bugsquashing.html

Some words about transitions:

The following transitions are currently moving from unstable to testing:

Qt (libqt3c102-mt -> libqt3-mt)
KDE (kdelibs4 -> kdelibs4c2)
jack (libjack0.80.0 -> libjack0.100.0)

If you want to NMU any package that depends on one of these libraries
please check with the release team that your NMU isn't hurting these
efforts. There are also some more packages tied to these transitions.
I will try to prepare a better list until Friday in the wiki at
http://wiki.debian.org/BSP

The following transitions could need some NMUs to get in shape for
moving from unstable to testing:

Imagemagick (libmagick6 -> 9)
every C++ library that hasn't yet changed its package name
 (see http://people.debian.org/~djpig/gcc-transition/lib-packages-3.3)

Procedures:

During the BSP we should use a 0-Day NMU policy again, that means
uploads that fix RC bugs that are more than a week old can be uploaded
directly. This worked reasonably well during the sarge release process
so I see no reason not to use it again. If you feel unsure about a
patch and/or if the patch is rather invasive, please consider asking
on #debian-bugs for review and/or giving the maintainer some time
to react by uploading to the DELAYED queue[2].

[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/02/msg00887.html
    and http://people.debian.org/~djpig/delayed.html

Everyone should consider reading the two announcements by Matthias
Klose and Steve Langasek about the C++ transition ([3],[4]) and
the mails by Colin Watson, Pascal Hakim, and Joey Hess about the latest BTS
features and their usage ([5],[6],[7]) before attending the BSP.

[3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg00001.html
[4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg00007.html
[5] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg00010.html
[6] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg00014.html
[7] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/10/msg00006.html

Other useful links:

where to find available RC bugs:
  http://bts.turmzimmer.net/details.php?ignoresid&ignnewon&new7

state of the C++ transition (useful to find packages that need to be
fixed/transitioned):
  http://people.debian.org/~mfurr/gxx/

build logs for failed builds:
  http://buildd.debian.org/

Explanations for missing binaries:
  http://people.debian.org/~igloo/status.php

List of open RC bugs for a given source package:
  http://bugs.debian.org/src:

Information on opening new bug reports:
  http://bugs.debian.org/

Debian Policy:
  http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

Gruesse,

Frank Lichtenheld 
www: http://www.djpig.de/