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Draft: Hints for contributing to Debian GNU/Linux



Draft notes:
* Comments that shouldn't appear in the final document are marked in 
  the following way: ( comment -sr1)
  These comments usually highlight open questions. In this case I am 
  interested in answers. (see next sentence)
* Please send comments about the contents of this document via private 
  e-mail to me. I do not want to see debian-user cluttered with many very 
  good suggestions for this poor document. 
* English isn't my native language, so I am interested in suggestions 
  regarding my style of writing. Please send these via private e-mail.
* I intend to send the final document to debian-user regularly (e.g. weekly).

$Id: contributing,v 1.1 1995/10/26 22:51:42 sr1 Exp sr1 $
------------------------

Debian GNU/Linux is developed by an open group. (Some words why Debian
GNU/Linux users should contribute. -sr1)

This document is intend to identify areas that need your
contributions. It provides information that hopefully changes quite often, 
so it supplements the Debian GNU/Linux FAQ.

Please sent corrections and suggestions to Sven Rudolph
<sr1@inf.tu-dresden.de>.

0. Contents

(not yet done -sr1)


1. General Questions

1.1 What is Debian GNU/Linux

The Debian GNU/Linux WWW server is at http://www.debian.org/ , the FAQ
is located at http://www.debian.org/FAQ/ .

1.2 What do I need to know to become a package maintainer ?

(Pointer to the documents in debian/project/standards -sr1)

1.3. Where do I announce that I want to maintain a package ?

(Wasn't there an e-mail address mentioned somewhere ? -sr1)


2. Package that have no current maintainer

* ghostscript, gsfonts (previously maintained by Ted Hajek 
  <tedhajek@boombox.micro.umn.edu>, he got an increased non-Debian workload)
* elm             \
* ircii            \  (Carl Streeter <streeter@cae.wisc.edu> maintained
* wenglish          > these packages. Where is he ? -sr1)
* unzip, zip       /
* perl            /
  (J.H.M.Dassen <jdassen@WI.LeidenUniv.NL> created a newer package, but 
  it is declared experimental because he doesn't have the time to maintain 
  it.)
 

3. Packages that the maintainer wants to give away

* seyon      \  (currently maintained by 
* mailx      /  Sven Rudolph <sr1@inf.tu-dresden.de> )


(If you have packages that you would like to get rid of, send me an
e-mail about it. -sr1)


4. Not-yet existing packages

(This list was created on debian-devel a while ago. I tried to delete
not-up-to-date entries, but I may have missed some. -sr1)

Programming and development:
* GNU Pascal.
* UPS - the X-based debugger.  Probably not worth building until we've
  switched to ELF. (There are Linux-specific patches around.)
* checker (electric-fence is already available. Is checker better, worse 
  or different ? -sr1)
* vgrind (formats source code for printing)
* Scheme->C
* SCM - Scheme interpreter which will soon be the basis of
  the GNU extension language.
* SLIB.
* CLISP - Common Lisp interpreter
* GCL - Common Lisp compiler (nee AKCL) and...
* ECoLisp - a Common Lisp compiler that produces faster code but
   isn't as widely used as GCL
* CLiCC - Common Lisp compiler that generates stand-alone apps
   (rather large ones, though)
* GNAT (GNU Ada Translator)

Mail software:
* BBDB (for Emacs: Big Brother Data Base, a rolodex with hooks into
  VM, GNUS, and RMAIL)

USENET news software:
* nn.
* C News (as an alternative to INN) including NOV and NNTP.
* strn.

System administration and tools:
* sunsite:/pub/Linux/system/Status/vmstat-1.0.tar.gz.
* enscript (plain text to PostScript)
* mpage (something like enscript -sr1)
* flexfax/hylafax (or any Fax send/receive software)
* apsfilter (a printing filter) (ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
             /pub/Linux/local/packages/APS).
* magicfilter (another printing filter)
(It is quite difficult to write a universal and easy configuration 
mechanism for these printing filters.)

Maths packages:
* Octave (the FSF's Matlab clone).
* SC (the spreadsheet).
* GNU calc (see the Emacs list ...).

CAD:
* SISCAD, a CADD package.
  ftp://hrz-ws26.hrz.uni-kassel.de/pub/machines/LINUX/misc/siscad
* Kubota Graphics Corporation's now-PD 3-D visualization system, Dore'.

Misc Tools:
* zip/unzip
* gnu-recode
* quota


Editors:
* Lucid Emacs
* MULE: MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs (adds support for many 
  character sets--Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, and many
  more) (A maintainer who uses these enhancements would be welcome.)

Games:
* nethack

X11:
* Andrew
* ImageMagick (image viewer) (This package would belong into the
  non-free section if it provides the creation of GIF files.)
* OpenWindows (at least a library package--the full OpenWindows
  distribution, with window manager, etc. would also be nice, but
  not as important)
* Mosaic (This would belong into the non-free section.)


5. Beyond packages

( Some areas that need work cannot be assigned to specific
packages. Therefore this section -sr1.)

* internationalization / localization
* documentation and translations
* GNU Debian/Linux for other platforms (m68k, alpha)
* ( several other things that I don't remember just now ... -sr1)



-- 
Sven Rudolph (sr1@inf.tu-dresden.de); WWW : http://www.sax.de/~sr1/


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