[in the news] Users howl as Fedora 12 gives root to unwashed masses
by susmit shannigrahi
"Fedora users are revolting against a change introduced in the latest
version of the operating system that allows the installation of
thousands of software titles without an administrative password.
Critics say the move diminishes the security of machines running the
open-source OS by giving unprivileged users what amounts to
administrative control. That could allow lower-level employees to
install software that's not been approved by administrators, or worse,
to gain root access by installing an application with a known security
vulnerability and then intentionally exploiting it."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/19/fedora_12_root_imbroglio/
--
Regards,
Susmit.
=============================================
http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/user:susmit
=============================================
Sent from Calcutta, WB, India
14 years, 5 months
Examples of good responses to the PackageKit issue
by Mel Chua
Here we go. As promised earlier, I wanted to point out some examples of
what I thought were great responses to press about the PackageKit issue,
and the resources those responses used, for folks who want to help us go
out and do likewise.
In general, the most helpful responses seem to have a section that goes
something like: "We're working on changing this; see
$location_of_discussion (and optionally,
$list_of_resources_countering_specific_points). It would be great if you
could update the story to reflect this. Thank you." (Any tips from folks
with dealing-with-press experience?)
This topic is coming up in the FeSCo meeting tomorrow (Friday, 17:00
UTC, #fedora-meeting), so it's still very much a story in progress.
== Examples ==
Susmit pointed out the responses - and ensuing article edit - on
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/19/fedora_12_root_imbroglio/; I
thought Adam's comment at
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/19/fedora_12_root_imbroglio/comments...
was particularly nice.
The LWN article at http://lwn.net/Articles/362592/ posted a correction,
http://lwn.net/Articles/362986/, immediately after Karsten's reply at
the end, http://lwn.net/Articles/362996/, which is a nice short
call-out. The 3rd paragraph of Mike's response to the correction,
http://lwn.net/Articles/362995/, thanks people for their constructive
criticism. (We should do more of that.)
Any other good examples of responses-to-press that people want to call
out here?
== Resources ==
* The official Fedora response announcement (from Paul):
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2009-November/msg000...
* An explanation of the background behind the change, by Owen Taylor:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-November/msg01445....
* For users of Fedora 12 who would like to change PackageKit policy
before the fix is pushed, see
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f12/en-US/html/sect-Release_N....
== For those who want to learn more ==
The FeSCo (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FESCO - Fedora Engineering
Steering Committee) agenda ticket for tomorrow's meeting is
https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/277: it's at 17:00 UTC in
#fedora-meeting.
The bugzilla bug: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047
Note: The full conversation thread there is fascinating but very long -
if you're short on time, read a few comments and think about which ones
(in your opinion) move us forward, and what comments (and responses) we
want to emulate when we go out and comment on press articles. To point
out a semi-random selection (I scrolled down and poked a few that caught
my eye): the revision of release notes starting in
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047#c17 (and how they
thread calmly through the rest of the discussion), the comments called
out in https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047#c99, and the
response to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047#c236
(both in bugzilla and on the mailing list linked to - it's Owen's post).
Transparency >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt.
--Mel
14 years, 5 months
[in the news] Fedora, Still Pushing The Envelope
by Rahul Sundaram
Hi
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7618/1.html
"Leonidas was the most ambitious release ever and this new release of
Fedora 12 builds upon its solid base. Constantine provides an even more
polished user experience, while at the same time introducing a copious
amount of new features"
"Fedora 12 “Constantine” continues the tradition of pushing the envelope
of free software and could just be, the very best Linux distribution of
2009."
Rahul
14 years, 5 months
[in the news] Saving the "Best" for Last - Fedora 12 (Constantine)
by Rahul Sundaram
Hi
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10014494o-2000498448b,00.htm
"So rather than waste my time and yours on "yet another Fedora 12
review", I'll simply say that if you want good, authoritative
information, I would recommend the Fedora Project Documentation, and if
you are looking for an overview of the highlights of the new release,
complete with pictures, have a look at the excellent Fedora 12 One Page
Release Notes"."
"So, of the four "major" distributions over the past month (Ubuntu 9.10,
Mandriva 2010, openSuSE 11.2 and Fedora 12), the only one that didn't
crash, hang or otherwise misbehave on at least one of my
laptop/netbook/nettop systems was Fedora."
Rahul
14 years, 5 months
news / press release index
by Robyn Bergeron
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F12_Press_and_News_Index
I just whipped this up to keep track of what's being posted on the
mailing list.
I'll go through add articles that were posted to the mailing list to
this wiki page once or twice a day. (At some point, it'd be awesome
to go through this list and track down author information like email /
contact information, so we make sure to have them on a press contact
list come this point or earlier in F13 cycle. We can probably put
this on the braindump list.)
And hopefully I'm not duplicating work being done elsewhere, since
that's never fun. If I am, tell me!
Cheers,
Robyn
14 years, 5 months
[in the news] Tip of the hat: Fedora 12 a strong update
by Kara Schiltz
Ars Technica
11.17.09
Tip of the hat: Fedora 12 a strong update
A new version of the Fedora Linux distribution was released today.
Fedora 12, codenamed Constantine, is now available for download.
By Ryan Paul
Red Hat announced today the official release of Fedora 12, the latest
version of the popular open source Linux distribution. This release
brings some impressive new features and a lot of much-needed bugfixes.
It's a strong update that puts the distro on the right track forward and
addresses the serious installation problems that we encountered when we
tested Fedora 11.
Fedora 12, codenamed Constantine, brings improved power management,
performance optimizations, new virtualization enhancements, and a lot of
other great stuff. A lot of the improvements will boost Fedora's
suitability for netbooks. A new Moblin spin is available that allows
users to easily test Moblin's specialized user interface on top of
Fedora 12.
Full article:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/11/tip-of-the-hat-fedora-12-...
14 years, 5 months