[[!meta title="Tails report for February, 2016"]]

[[!toc]]

Releases
========

* [[Tails 2.0.1 was released on February 12, 2016|news/version_2.0.1]] (minor release).

* [[A release candidate for 2.2 was released on February 14, 2016|news/test_2.2-rc1]].

* The next release (2.2) is [[scheduled for March 08|contribute/calendar]].

The following changes were introduced in Tails 2.0.1:

- Upgrade Tor Browser to [5.5.2](https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-552-released).

- Fix regression breaking boot on 32-bit UEFI platforms. ([[!tails_ticket 11007 desc="#11007"]])

Code
====

- We will replace Vidalia ([[!tails_ticket 6841]]), which has been unmaintained for years, in 2.2 with:
   * the Tor Status GNOME Shell extension, which adds a System Status
   * [Onion Circuits](https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/onioncircuits), a simple Tor circuit monitoring tool.

* Hide "Laptop Mode Tools Configuration" menu entry. We don't support
  configuring l-m-t in Tails, and it doesn't work out of the box.
  ([[!tails_ticket 11074]])

Friendlier build system
-----------------------

For years Tails has offered a
[[build system based on Vagrant|contribute/build/#index2h1]], which at
times has been maintained and really easy to use, and so a great
resource for new contributors that want to test their
modifications. Sadly that was a while ago, mostly because all but one
Tails developers have been using their own custom build systems. The
main reason for that is that Vagrant uses Virtualbox by default, while
all of us (and our infrastructure, for example our Jenkins automated builds
and tests setup) greatly prefer the QEMU/KVM stack (and libvirt), and
it is not possible to mix two hypervisors at the same time.

But this is about to change! Recently there has been quite an effort to
[[!tails_ticket 6354 desc="migrate to vagrant-libvirt and the QEMU/KVM hypervisor"]]
which should allow all of us to converge to the same build
system. Besides saving development time since only one system has to
be maintained, it also means that this build system will be
well-maintained in the future, and so remain easy-to-use for
contributors.

There are a few roadblocks still, though, but you can help, especially
if you are a Debian developer! Currently we need vagrant-libvirt (and
ruby-fog-libvirt) packaged and maintained in Debian, and
[quite a lot of work](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=753012)
has already been done on that front. And to have the build system
working on Debian Jessie we need the following packages backported:
vagrant, ruby-excon, ruby-fog-core and ruby-fog-xml. If you want to
help, please get in touch with us on the
[tails-dev@boum.org public mailing list](https://mailman.boum.org/listinfo/tails-dev/)!

Shell scripts are evil
----------------------

Shell scripts are deceptively easy to quickly prototype
proof-of-concepts with, but generally result in things with subtle
bugs, a high maintenance burden, and difficulties to be extended since
it doesn't scale well with complexity. A lot of people (us included)
delude themselves with that they know the shell, but it is a
complicated mess with really strange "features" and conventions that
few truly understand.

Therefore we have started an effort to
[[!tails_ticket 11198 desc="port our shell scripts to Python"]]
([[blueprint|blueprint/Port_shell_scripts_to_Python]]), and,
implicitly, to make it more convenient to start writing new scripts in
Python instead of shell.

If you are into Python and want to help Tails,
[[come join us|contribute]]!

Documentation and website
=========================

* The blueprint for [[Porting Tails to Debian Stretch|blueprint/Debian_Stretch]] has been updated.

* Multiple commits were made to speed up the build process of the website. ([[!tails_ticket 11151]])

* We added more organizations to our [[list of organizations offering Tails training|support/learn]].

User experience
===============

* There is now a blueprint for [[Porting Tails Installer to OS X|blueprint/Port_Tails_Installer_to_OS_X/]]

* We're now also publishing torrents for betas and RCs (Closes: [[!tails_ticket 11126]])

Infrastructure
==============

* The ISO build system has been [upgraded to Jessie](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2016-February/010323.html).

* Our test suite covers 208 scenarios.

* In February 603 ISO images were automatically built and 597 were automatically tested by our continuous integration infrastructure.

Funding
=======

- We sent our final report for the Digital Defenders grant we had over 2015.

Outreach
========

Past events
-----------

- DrWhax and sajolida were present at the
  [Tor Winter Dev Meeting 2016](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2016WinterDevMeeting).

Upcoming events
---------------

- The Freedom of the Press Foundation organizes several [workshops on
  Tails at the Whitney Museum](http://whitney.org/Events/TailsWorkshops)
  in New-York, USA.

On-going discussions
====================

* A discussion about [[!tails_ticket 11162 desc="Creating personas to visualize our user base"]] has been started.

* The discussion about [[persistent Tor state |blueprint/persistent_Tor_state/]] is still ongoing.

* A blueprint about [[Endless upgrades|blueprint/Endless_upgrades/]] has been added.

* A blueprint about [[ARM platforms|blueprint/ARM_platforms/]] has been added.

* Research on [[porting the tails installer to windows|blueprint/Port_Tails_Installer_to_Windows/]] has been done. ([[!tails_ticket 8558]])

Press and testimonials
======================

* 2016-02-25: [Tails official mysterious during interview](http://www.networkworld.com/article/3038059/open-source-tools/tails-official-mysterious-during-interview.html) by Bryan Lunduke in Network World.

* 2016-02-11: [Tails Installer is now in Debian](https://bits.debian.org/2016/02/tails-installer-in-debian.html) in bits.debian.org.

Translation
===========

All website PO files
--------------------

  - de: 43% (2456) strings translated, 4% strings fuzzy, 39% words translated
  - fa: 51% (2933) strings translated, 5% strings fuzzy, 58% words translated
  - fr: 54% (3075) strings translated, 5% strings fuzzy, 57% words translated
  - pt: 28% (1641) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy, 28% words translated

Total original words: 57704

[[Core PO files|contribute/l10n_tricks/core_po_files.txt]]
----------------------------------------------------------

  - de: 88% (1210) strings translated, 7% strings fuzzy, 87% words translated
  - fa: 80% (1100) strings translated, 11% strings fuzzy, 74% words translated
  - fr: 81% (1116) strings translated, 9% strings fuzzy, 77% words translated
  - pt: 71% (974) strings translated, 16% strings fuzzy, 68% words translated

Total original words: 14624

Metrics
=======

* Tails has been started more than 547670 times this month. This makes 18885 boots a day on average.
* 21378 downloads of the OpenPGP signature of Tails ISO from our website.
* 138 bug reports were received through WhisperBack.
