Re: [Q] are there standard ways in debian game team?
On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 2:13 PM, nozzy123nozzy <nozzy123nozzy@gmail.com> wrote:
> [Q1] If no one can contact to the upstream of game which people want
> to make into debian packege,should he/she do next? (Ex. several times
> he/she sent mails to the upstream,but no one response still now.)
If the license is clearly DFSG, you are free to go forward with
packaging. However, if upstream does not respond, the long term
viability of the project doesn't look good. There will probably not be
much support with bug fixes, and you may effectively become the
upstream and be responsible for including community patches to your
code.
> [Q2] The upstream release much newer version,but no one can contact to
> package maintener still now (for long time), should people do next to
> make newer package?
For non-team maintained packages, see [1], which is generally used for
bug fixing versions, not really entirely new versions.
If a maintainer is really missing-in-action (MIA), see [2]:
"What can you do? Well, obviously, talk to people! Mail them, see if
you can meet them on IRC, be creative. Simply ask them if they're
still active. And if you don't want to do that or you're out of ideas
or just too shy, leave it to us by mailing to mia@qa.debian.org which
is our contact address. (You can even CC us from the beginning if you
fear your contact will remain unanswered anyways.) Mailing public
mailing lists is also possible but not always as effective as one
might think. And please, pretty please, don't just start orphaning
packages. Give us and the maintainer in question some time to figure
things out."
If the package is a team maintained package, and your new versions is
sponsored by a member of the team (in a why the follows team rules),
you can do a team upload [3] of the new version. I don't know if the
games team has any explicit rule on when you can or cannot do a team
upload, but if you are open and transparent with no objections from
team members, it probably is acceptable to update a package to a new
version as a team upload. Simple games will probably be allowed, but
libraries probably need more discussion and coordination.
[1] http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/pkgs.html#nmu
[2] http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/MIA
[3] http://wiki.debian.org/TeamUpload
> [Q3] If a open source game has some modules which is included unclear
> about free or not,should I do next to make debian package?
You can discuss details of the license here, or on
debian-legal@lists.debian.org. Also, see [4, 5], someone may have
already looked into the problem. If the license truly is a problem,
you can see if it is eligible for contrib or non-free repositories, or
try to remove the offending module (and possibly replace it with a
free module).
[4] http://wiki.debian.org/Games/Suggested
[5] http://wiki.debian.org/Games/Unsuitable
>
> [Q4] If people uploads new game package to alioth and asks for the
> sponsor in debian mentor group,but no one responds still now, he/she
> should do next?
See Debian games team's sponsorship info at [6, 7]. Also see the
mentors FAQ [8]. Sometimes getting sponsorship requires persistence
and initiative. If you have a "lintian --pedanti -I" clean package, a
VCS repo set-up, following DEP5 and DEP3, properly uploaded somewhere
(mentors.debian.net, git.debian.org, etc.), have the ITP bug set-up,
and send the properly formatted email to debian-mentors and this list,
you still may have to try to find someone willing to help you via IRC
chat or send second/third emails to these lists. People are not
intentionally being rude or ignoring your packages, it's just that
people free time fluctuates from week to week, so someone who was busy
your first request might have more time your second request.
[6] http://wiki.debian.org/Games/Sponsors
[7] http://wiki.debian.org/Games/Sponsors/Queue
[8] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMentorsFaq#HowdoIgetasponsorformypackage.3F
Regards,
Scott
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