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Colin Watson: Free software activity in July 2026

✇Planet Debian

About 95% of my Debian contributions this month were sponsored by Freexian.

You can also support my work directly via Liberapay or GitHub Sponsors.

OpenSSH

Now that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS has been released, I’ve been getting back to the GSS-API key exchange package split in our OpenSSH packaging. Once I started testing my draft openssh-gssapi source package, I realized that I needed to make some changes in the main openssh source package first in order to support it. The dependency from openssh-server to openssh-client was awkward, as was the (related) fact that openssh-client contained shared documentation for other OpenSSH binary packages. After some thought, I created a new openssh-common binary package, moved shared documentation and the ssh-keygen program to that, and dropped dependencies on openssh-client which were no longer necessary (fixing #699473 and #1070098 in the process).

This caused a couple of regressions (#1141420 and #1141550) that I had to fix, and more subtly it also caused a number of autopkgtest regressions in other packages because openssh-client is no longer in base images as a result of a dependency from openssh-server. I believe I have fixes for all of these either pending review or merged (one of which I did in August rather than July):

I upgraded from 10.3p1 to 10.4p1, and in the process contributed a GSS-API option handling fix upstream.

I made openssh-ssh1’s package description more accurately describe the package, thanks to suggestions from Matthias Lang.

Installer team

With support from a Freexian customer, I reviewed, tested, edited, and merged a patch to add VLAN support. I described the details of what I did in a comment.

This has been vaguely on my to-do list since, er, about 2014, so it was very satisfying to get it sorted out.

Python packaging

New upstream versions:

Other build/test failures:

I fixed some other bugs:

I adopted transaction for the Python team.

I attended the Python BoF at DebConf remotely, although a badly-timed fibre outage in the village I live in really didn’t help.

Code reviews

Other bits and pieces

Dan Poltawski pointed out in a Fediverse post that the project history didn’t list Sruthi as the current DPL. I fixed that, although it doesn’t look as though the fix is in the published version yet.

I upgraded yubihsm-shell to 2.8.0.

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Bits from Debian: DebConf26 Local Team says goodbye

✇Planet Debian

On Saturday 25 July 2026, the annual Debian Developers and Contributors Conference came to a close. The Debian Press team would now like to share this personal and beautiful message from the Santa Fe Local Team.

Words from DC26 Local Team

DebConf26 is over, and those of us who were part of the Local Team are trying to return to “normality”, if such a thing exists after organizing a DebConf.

This event changed our lives and would not have been possible without the help of many great people.

We would especially like to thank everyone who became part of our extended local team. Our endless thanks go to Gunnar —who also instigated this whole adventure—, Santiago, Nattie, Stefano, and Olasd. Thank you for supporting and guiding us, sharing your experience, and helping us find solutions throughout the entire process.

It was also made possible thanks to the great work, strong support and patience of international teams: Fundraising, Bursaries, Content, Video, Treasury, Visa, Website, Accommodation, Front Desk, Cheese and Wine, Publicity as well as all the other teams and individuals who contributed. We apologize if we have forgotten to mention anyone; many people helped make this event possible.

Our deepest thanks also go to everyone who joined us in working on the event, especially Fer, José, and Julián, who showed great commitment and took responsibility for several important tasks.

We would also like to extend our gratitude to FICH, the Universidad Nacional del Litoral, the institutions, organizations, sponsors, suppliers, and everyone who contributed in one way or another to welcoming the Debian community to Santa Fe.

And finally, a very special thank you to our families, to whom we dedicated little time these past few weeks, who supported us on this adventure, enduring the exhaustion, the calls and messages at all hours, and the occasional stressful situation. Always giving us that much-needed, encouraging hug with so much love.

These were very intense weeks, during which we tried to give our best so that everyone could enjoy their stay and so that the Debian community had the necessary conditions to meet, work, share knowledge, and continue creating the magic that characterizes community life and the development of Debian.

As happens at every DebConf, there were difficulties, unexpected situations, and challenges that required us to improvise, learn, and perform a few juggling acts. There were also moments that will certainly remain as memorable anecdotes: the “antisocial room”, some gas heaters worthy of a museum, and newly unlocked powers for negotiating with suppliers.

We have no evidence, but also no doubt, that for many people the Conference Dinner was one of the best moments of the event.

A few ingredients we had hoped would happen naturally were missing, such as more wine nights and at least one in-person football match.

During the two weeks of DebConf, we experienced every kind of weather and a wide range of emotions. Above all, however, we saw people enjoying themselves and building friendships, which fills us with pride.

Thank you very much to everyone who came and helped DebConf26 leave such a beautiful mark on our hearts.

We hope our paths cross again somewhere in life.

Best regards,

Leonardo, Emmanuel, Mariano, Pablo, and Martín DebConf26 Local Team

About Debian

The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of the largest and most influential Open Source projects. Thousands of volunteers from all over the world work together to create and maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal operating system.

About DebConf

DebConf is the Debian Project's developer conference. In addition to a full schedule of technical, social and policy talks, DebConf provides an opportunity for developers, contributors and other interested people to meet in person and work together more closely. It has taken place annually since 2000 in locations as varied as Scotland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, India, Korea, France. More information about DebConf is available from https://debconf.org/.

Contact Information

For further information, please visit the DebConf26 web page at https://debconf26.debconf.org/ or send mail to press@debian.org.

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