Lots of packages up for adoption
Need to dump some packages. Normally I live in the UK, but I am spending a
year of my degree in the USA, I could not bring my desktop computer with me, I
bought a Laptop out here, because my situation has changed lots of the
packages I used to maintain are no longer relevant to me. I need to focus
more on my studies so I have decided to offer all but one of my packages up
for adoption. Most of them are easy to maintain, and would be good for new
maintainers.
All my packages are in main.
Offered to adopt, no upload yet made
====================================
alsaplayer (Bugs: Normal: 10, Wishlist: 3)
I offered to adopt alsaplayer from Joseph Carter, I could not get the latest
version to compile, this was in August, I talked to the upstream author and he
said that he would release a new version that would compile, it is almost
November and no new version has appeared. I do not use this package.
geomview (Bugs: Normal: 9, Wishlist: 2)
I offered to adopt this package from Randolph Chung, I can not get it to
build. I do not have 3D working on my laptop right now, and I do not use this
package.
This package is probably quite a challenge to maintain, it should probably go
to somebody who uses it.
Easy to maintain packages
=========================
dvorak7min - Seven minute dvorak tutorial (Bugs: Normal: 1)
I do not use a dvorak keyboard, I tried for a while, but I gave up. So I do
not use this package. There was a bug to do with handling of none qwerty
keyboards, the package includes scripts to jump between qwerty and dvorak, but
they have no support for jumping to other keyboards. I solved the problem, and
closed the bug, by moving the scripts and their man pages to
/usr/share/dvorak7min/examples, I have had no complaints from users about
this.
The only open bug is Goswin reminding us that the package is missing a
build-depends on debhelper.
This is easy to maintain, it should probably go to somebody who uses it, or at
least has a dvorak keyboard.
esh - Easy shell (lisp based) (Bugs: 0)
I packaged this because it looked cool, it has no bugs. I do not know lisp,
and I do not use it. Easy package to maintain, but should probably go to
somebody who uses it, or at least knows lisp.
freesweep - Console minesweeper game (Bugs: 0)
No Bugs on this package, I do not play it. Easy to maintain, it should
probably go to somebody who plays it.
gravitywars - Game (Bugs: 0)
No Bugs, this is one of my pride and joys. It was non-free, I tracked down the
upstream author, he no longer uses Linux, and he said I could change the
licence to GPL. So I did, and here it is. The code is horrible, there are lots
of places where malloc should be used, but it never appears in the source
code. The output is svgalib, so it does not work on all archs. The code is
hard to read because it has been designed to run fast on slow machines. It
really needs rewriting, but I am not sure whether it is worth it or if
anybody would be bothered.
The upstream author sent me an new, unreleased version that uses SDL as the
output instead of svgalib. I can not get it to run very fast on my laptop.
I can not get svgalib working on my laptop so I do not have the ability to run
gravitywars right now.
This package can be easy to maintainer if it is left as it is, or a challenge
if anybody wants to rewrite it. I would recommend it goes to somebody that
plays it.
jargon-text - Jargon file (Hackers dictionary) in text format (Bugs: 0)
I have been pestering ESR for a new version of this that works with vh (see
below). I don't expect a new release soon, this package should probably be
removed from debian. Also there have been some comments that this package
belonging in the data section. I agree.
joystick - Joystick diagnostic and calibration tools (Bugs: Wishlist: 0)
I took over this package when I had a desktop and an analog joystick. At the
moment I only have access to a Laptop, I thought that meant no joysticks.
Then I won a Microsoft Sidewinder USB, which was nice. So I have a USB
joystick, and I can play with the package, but I never use it, and I do not
have an analog joystick to test it with. So if anybody else wants it, it is
yours.
The only bug is wishlist suggesting that joystick be in the section utils
instead of misc.
sniffit - Packet sniffer, both interactive and non-interactive (Bugs: 0)
I can not really maintain this, anymore, I am on a University network, so I
can not run a sniffer. The code is not very nice, should probably be
rewritten, and since it is normally run as root, it would benefit from a
security audit.
uptimed - Uptime daemon, records best uptimes (Bugs: 0)
uprecords-cgi
People keep on filing bugs against the version in stable, all of the bugs are
fixed in unstable, so I just close them. Package is easy to maintain, could be
re-done, the uprecords-cgi package just contains a symlink; it is set up like
that so that people who install uptimed on web servers do not automatically
get their uptime record posted on the net. Maybe this could be redone with
debconf? This package does not work well with my laptop, it syncs the hard
drive all the time, which makes it power up, there goes my battery life, so I
do not have it installed, but I used to use it.
vh - Volks Hypertext viewer (Bugs:0)
ESR says it is obsolete, he is probably right, was used to view jargon-text,
but that is now out of date now, so vh is basically useless. Easy package to
maintain, no bugs filed against it.
xlife (Bugs: Forwarded: 3)
I do not use xlife often, there are 3 bugs associated with it, all are too
complicated for me to fix, I forwarded them upstream to ESR, but I received no
reply on them.
The package is otherwise easy to maintain. Should probably be taken over by
somebody that uses, and understands it.
One lintian warning:
W: xlife: menu-item-creates-new-section Games/Simulation /usr/lib/menu/xlife:5
VNC - should be maintained as a group
=====================================
svncviewer - VNC viewer for svgalib (Bugs: 0)
Although this package has no bugs open the keyboard handling needs some work,
I used to use a UK keyboard, and svnc would operate as if I had a US keyboard.
Now that I use a US keyboard I would not notice the bug. I no longer have use
for vnc, and I can not get svgalib to work on my laptop.
This package is easy to maintain. It should probably be taken over by the same
person that takes over the main vnc package, somebody who uses it, and someone
who wants to look at the keyboard mapping problem.
x2vnc - Join an X and VNC screen. (Bugs: 0)
One of my first packages, very cool, but now I only have access to one
machine, not much use. Again keyboard handling is not perfect and could use
some work. Probably wants to be maintained by the same person as svnc and the
rest of vnc.
vncserver - The VNC X server (Bugs: Important: 2, Normal: 13, Wistlist: 2)
libvncauth-dev
libvncauth0
vnc-common
xvncviewer - VNC view for X (Bugs: Normal 2)
Basically this package is much to large for me to handle in my current
situation. I took maintainership of VNC from Marcus Brinkmann, so he could
concentrate his efforts on the Hurd. Intially I made some big changes to the
package, I built libvncauth0 as a dynamic library in a separate package so
that svncviewer could be kept as a separate source package, and I eliminated
code duplication with x2vnc.
Since I made my improvements to vnc a new version has come out that I have not
packaged. I find it difficult to understand the X source code, at the moment
the package builds its own version of imake and uses it in the build process.
I would prefer it did not do this, that it just used the version of imake from
the Debian XFree86 packages.
I do not use VNC anymore.
This package is difficult, it needs to go to an experienced maintainer
willing to work through the bug list. One of the reasons that I took the
package was that I was living less than an hour from Cambridge, UK, where the
upstream maintainers work. Now I am living on the other side of the Atlantic
this is no longer the case. I talked to a Debian Developer who worked at AT&T
research labs at the Linux Expo UK in 1999, he expressed interest in taking
over VNC. I am afraid I have forgotten your name and e-mail address, but if
you want VNC I will give you priority. I would recommend that whoever takes
this package be using, have access to machines other than i386, and also take
svncviewer and x2vnc.
Want to keep
============
cmatrix - Console Matrix, matrix on the console or in an xterm (Bugs: 0)
I like this package, it works, it is bug free and I use it. If anybody else
really wants it, they can have it.
--
Don't worry -- shop.
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