Debian Addresses Security Problems

An anonymous reader writes "After suffering manpower shortages and other issues, Debian says it has finally addressed concerns that it was falling behind on security. Debian's elected leader Branden Robinson yesterday flagged an inquiry into the processes by which security updates are released, citing a potential lack of transparency and communication failures. It was also an appropriate time to add new members to Debian's security team, as several have been inactive for a while, Robinson said. Debian initial security problems can be found in this earlier Slashdot posting."

Comments

Proof

[bondsbw]

Debian initial security problems can be found in this earlier Slashdot posting.

PROOF that Slashdot submitters have access to previous stories!

Who knew, dupes really aren't necessary after all.

Re:1000 developers?

[RAMMS EIN]

Being able to write some software and produce packages is very different from doing security. Security is something that many, even in the developer community, don't understand, or don't understand completely. Having someone who isn't completely security savvy declare your program secure does not help you very much.

Plus, Debian likely requires a lot of security people compared to other distro's, because 1) they provide very many packages (I can't say for sure more than any other, but it's likely), and 2) they don't only fix things by upgrading packages in unstable to the latest version, but also backport fixes to the version in stable.

And in the meantime, the rest of the organization needs not to be forgotten. New packages are submitted all the time, people do like to see a new release within their lifetimes, questions have to be answered, (non-security) bugs need to be fixed, etc. etc. etc. Debian is just a huge project, and I'm impressed with how well it works.

The problem with Debian

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

is that they make you jump through many loops before allowing you to help them. I have several pieces of software that I wanted to contribute to Debian, so I figured I might as well be the maintainer for them. I gave up eventually, because it's just too damn bothersome, and another Debian maintainer took my .debs over for me.

IMHO, that's why they have a shortage of manpower, because it's just not easy enough for people to jump in and help.

Re:The problem with Debian

[Phleg]

Debian has no such shortage of manpower. Doing a quick wc -l over the list of Debian developers gets 1,671 people. And that's just the development team, which doesn't include the list of Debian System Administrators (which, admittedly, is much shorter). Debian has enough people for what it does, and the list of contributors continues to grow.

The problem it was experiencing, however, was a shortage of people assigned to the security team, which has apparently now been resolved.

RPM and Deb

[Anonymous Coward]

I think one of the main problems for debian stems from the use of .debs. Sure, they are still superior in a fews ways to rpms, but rpm has by and large caught up since rpm v3 and certainly rpm v4,

The baroque complexity of the debian/ subdirectory and build processes compared to an rpm .spec file is really discouraging for developers wanting to package their stuff up for debian.

Similarly, while apt trailblazed decent dependency handling, the latest versions of yum are catching up and, extremely importantly, it is far simpler to set up a yum repository than an apt one - so third party developers can very simply set up a website with a small repository and manage it themselves.

There'd be initial massive outcry I guess, but if Debian were to just adopt rpm, life would become much simpler. /usr/src/debian/RPMS ...

Re:RPM and Deb

[RAMMS EIN]

Yeah, and you had to post that as an AC just to prevent the Debian zealots (like me) from finding out your identity. :-(

I've always hated the RPM-based distros for getting more successful using an inferior technology and giving many people the impression that package management on Linux was hard, while Debian made everything easy with apt-get.

However, the times have changed. apt-get works for RPMs now, and automated package managers are finally working for RPM-based distros. Maybe the time has come for a standard in packaging land, and maybe that standard can indeed be RPM.

However, notice the many maybes. Having a standard is only helpful if every distro actually uses the same packages, and I'm not very sure that is going to happen. Without that, software still has to be packaged separately for each distribution, and there is little use for standardizing the format. In that case, the best course for Debian is to stick to their own format; if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Re:1000 developers?

[smoking2000]

Of those many developers only 5 of them where in the Security team. And of those 5 only one (Brandon) has remained active.

Due to the nature of security issues, the team had tough requirements for new members, which kept fresh blood to enter the team.

Now that this problem got the attention it unfortunatly needed, new members have stepped to the plate to strengthen the security team.

You can read more about the handling of this situation in Brandon's Project Leader Report

What I really want...

[rbochan]

... to know is:

Why the hell are slashdotters trusting news about Debian from friggen zdnet? And a blog on zdnet to boot!

I mean... c'mon... it's zdnet... with about as much credibility as The Star.

Re:GOOD

[Phillup]

The only reason to run Debian is if you believe in the politics behind the distro.

I could give a rat's ass about the politics of the distro.

Or the cost.

I run Debian because it is the easiest distro I've ever found when it comes time to update/upgrade.

I simply can't afford (nor can my customers) to take a machine to bare metal for an upgrade. And while most distros really try to make the upgrade from one version to the next easy... most are not "production quality" as far as I"m concerned.

If you want to deploy systems with a long service life, Debian is a fine choice.