An NMU would have to solve:
* #218254 (pidfile handling in initscript broken)
* #277925 (force-reload does not work)
As far as I can see, the latter is a result of pidfile handling being
broken (#218254). It seems that the pidfile handling can be fixed by
using the patches attached to #218254. (These patches have been
available since 2003-10-30, which should tell you something about the
responsiveness of the package maintainer.)
If you combine this with your hackish fix, then you solve #356796 and
#356909 in the process.
To summarize, if you decide to NMU the package, you should be able to
fix #218254, #277925, #356796, #356909 and #357020. This shouldn't be
too much work if you start out with the NMU-version already available in
the repository (serpento 0.4.1) and check out the patches that were
supplied (see #218254).
If I can be of any assistance, please let me know.
Mark