[[!meta date="Mon Dec 10 21:00:00 2012 +0000"]]
[[!meta title="Tails report for November, 2012"]]

November was pretty intense a month for Tails, including two major
releases. It was not the happiest though, due to personal issues,
unresolved conflicts within the team and server hard disks dying.

Anyhow, Tails' life does go on. Here is a report of what happened
last month.

[[!toc levels=1]]

Releases
========

Tails 0.14 was [[released on November 13th|news/version_0.14]] and
0.15 was [[released on November 28th|news/version_0.15]]. From now on,
we should be in a position to stick to the [[6-weeks release
cycle|contribute/release_schedule]] we have been aiming at for a while.

The Tails 0.16 release is scheduled for the first half of January.

People
======

Tails has been started and successfully connected to the Tor network
around 83731 times in November. That makes a boot every 31 seconds on
average. This number is an approximation from the requests made for the
security announcements feed. The later is retrieved by Tails after being
connected to Tor to eventually encourage users to update.

41 reports were received through WhisperBack.

The forum activity is still very high:
903 messages, 151 signed by Tails.

Code
====

Some preliminary work to [[add VirtualBox host software|todo/add_virtualbox_host_software]] has [been done](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/virtualbox-host).

Useless cookies exceptions in iceweasel were [removed](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/remove-cookies-exceptions).

Preliminary support for some [[OpenPGP SmartCards|todo/support_OpenPGP_smartcards]] was [added](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/OpenPGP-SmartCart).

LCD-optimized fonts settings were [implemented](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/nicer-fonts).

[Do not run setupcon on
X](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/no-console-setup-on-X).

Better support for printers that us the IJS driver [was added](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/hpijs).

The Monkeysphere XUL extension and the I2P console bookmark, that were
broken by the move to TorBrowser patches,
[were](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/monkeysphere_post_torbrowser)
[fixed](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/i2p_console_bookmark).

The OpenPGP Applet was [fixed](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/gpgApplet_menu_in_bottom_panel) to be compatible with the Windows
camouflage mode.

Custom APT sources handling was [fixed for release
candidates](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/handle_apt_sources_for_rc).

Bridge mode was [[found to have problems with Tor
restarts|todo/bridge_mode_vs_tor_restarts]] and
[fixed](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/bridge_mode_vs_tor_restarts).
While we were at it, some refactoring happened, and code was extracted
into a shell library to avoid too much duplication in the source tree.

Iceweasel 10.0.11esr-1 + TorBrowser patches was build.

A font for Sinhala script (spoken by 15-20 millions of people, mainly
in Sri Lanka) was [added](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/sinhala-font).

The Unsafe Browser window name was [set](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/unsafe_browser_name) to... *Unsafe Browser*.

Discrepancies between the various build setups used by Tails
developers was discovered and
[fixed](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/install-tasksel-standard-task).

APT pinning was [cleaned
up](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/cleanup-apt-pinning).

Our fake FireGPG package was
[removed](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/remove-fake-firegpg),
eventually. RIP.

The SCIM was [fixed](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/scim-in-autostarted-iceweasel) in the autostarted web browser.

Work [started](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/set-wireless-devices-state)
to [[todo/set_wireless_devices_state]] to something sane at boot time.

The move to using a recent `live-boot` was almost
[completed](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/live-boot-3.x),
but blocked due to a bug we found in upstream `live-boot`.
A patch is in the works.

Work to [[install a password manager|todo/install_password_manager]]
was [started](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/install-password-manager).

A poedit 1.5 backport that fixes a long-standing annoying bug was
[prepared](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/poedit-1.5)
and tested.

Preliminary steps towards [[installing the Minitube YouTube
client|todo/minitube]] were
[walked](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/minitube).
Many thanks to Alessandro Grassi for starting this effort, and going
on with it!

The `Persistent` directory is now [displayed in the Places
menu](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/persistent-directory-in-places).

Work has
[started](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/news-as-homepage)
to [[todo/set_iceweasel_homepage_to_Tails_news]].

Shutdown messages were [fixed](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=commit;h=ef5d24c144976d3f0b1c0f64b6533c9d304a9b95) to talk of DVD, not of CD.

IPv6 was
[disabled](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bugfix/disable-IPv6)
to workaround [[a recently discovered leak|todo/really_block_ipv6]].

Work towards a [[todo/better_power_off_button]] is
[ongoing](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/better_power_off_button).

[[obfsproxy support|todo/obfsproxy]] was [added](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature/obfsproxy).

A number of candidate branches for 0.15 were [merged](http://git.immerda.ch/?p=amnesia.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/devel).

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

The Tails website now has a [[Press & media information|press]] page.

The [[News]] can now be [translated](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002136.html).

As [[planned|todo/locking_down_this_website]], the website was
[locked-down](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002234.html)
a bit more.

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

[Improve Polipo
configuration](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002008.html),
[switch to
Privoxy](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002029.html),
or drop it all?

[Progress report on the automated test
suite](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002014.html)
triggered some discussion.

Helping adrelanos to proper copyright and licensing practices when [forking Tails documentation pages](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002054.html).

[Testing incremental
updates](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002108.html)
and [tails-create-iuk](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002128.html).

[Benchmarking Redmine](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002157.html).

[How to implement remembering installed packages?](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002160.html)

[Supporting
EntropyKey](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002195.html).

[Promoting Persistence features](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002197.html).

[What to do with Liferea
Cookies?](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002209.html)

[If/How to ship the Minitube native YouTube
client?](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002257.html)

[What's the safest value to set the time from Tor consensus?](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002228.html)

[Stop shipping bugs/* and todo/* in
ISO?](https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-dev/2012-November/002235.html)
