debian/control update for supernovas
Hi debian-astro & Thorsten,
I've made a small change to the debian/control file of the supernovas
package. It is to allow the `solsys1` and `solsys2` sub-packages to work
with future versions of the main package.
The reason is that I decided to retire these sub-packages starting with
the 1.5.0 release (expected around 1 November). `solsys1` supports only
old ephemeris files, which have been superseded by newer more accurate
ones that it cannot support. And, `solsys2` is an interface to an old
Fortran library (PLEPH), which is neither packaged for Debian, nor it is
usable without some custom interface code by the users (i.e. it relies
on unresolved symbols). So neither are truly viable options for
providing precise planetary astrometry going forward.
Originally, these sub-packages were provided because they represented
the *only* ephemeris support in NOVAS C (from which SuperNOVAS was
derived). However, since v1.2 we now have far superior, and up-to-date
ephemeris support via the calceph library (which is packaged for
Debian). Thus there is really no point of providing these old and
crippled plugin modules as sub-packages any more. (It is quite unlikely
that anyone really used these sub-packages anyway.) Hence the next
feature release, 1.5.0, will do away with them for good.
However, in the unlikely case that someone would like to retain support
for these outdated and limited modules going forward, the above change
to the debian/control file allow to use the last published version
(1.4.2-3) of these sub-packages with future supernovas releases (e.g.
1.5.0 or later).
Let me know if there is a different, preferred, way to retire these
sub-packages and offer some level of continuity at the same time.
Otherwise please upload the updated 1.4.2-3 package to Debian, so it can
represent the end-of-the line for these sub-packages.
Thanks,
-- Attila.
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