Re: Work-needing packages report for Jul 11, 2003

["Marcelo E. Magallon" <mmagallo@debian.org>]

Hi folks,

 I won't apologize for the long email.  When I started writing this I
 hoped it would be rather short.  The fact that it isn't only tells me
 that I was right -- about two years ago.  I can't believe that the QA
 people can say, with a straight face, that they are willing to maintain
 this pile of dung until someone shows up.  If we have so many
 maintainers and there are more at the burg's doors piling over each
 other in order to enter, why does the WNPP list keep growing like this?
 I simply went over the last WNPP mail, trimming everything that's not
 180 days old yet.  I am fully aware that because of the way the WNPP
 thing works that number might not be completely accurate, but it's
 nevertheless a good first approximation.

 Caveat emptor: my mood shifted a bit as I was writing.  Some of the
 comments might have a bit more bile than they should to be PC.

 Looking at the sorry state of this list, I'm tempted to include a short
 script in the WNPP mail that'd scream "hey! <this> is orphaned and you
 have it installed! Be a good person and adopt it."  When I first talked
 about this with Niels the idea of the list was to _reduce_ the number
 of packages without a maintainer, not to increase the ammount of crap
 that developers get in their mail.  Any suggestions to make the WNPP
 mails more useful, or easier to read or more effective are welcomed.

On Fri, Jul 11, 2003 at 12:33:22AM -0400, Work Needing Prospective
Packages wrote:

 >    blackened (#175101), orphaned 189 days ago
 >      Description: A feature rich ircII based IRC client

 Feature rich, but after six months noone seems to be interested in it.

 >    calc (#175399), orphaned 186 days ago
 >      Description: An advanced calculator and mathematical tool for Emacs
 >      Reverse Depends: riece-ndcc

 Maybe the maintainer of riece-ndcc cares about this?

 >    cbb (#166249), orphaned 259 days ago
 >      Description: The Check-Book Balancer, a Quicken clone

 I thought this this had merged with GNUcash upstream, didn't it?

 >    docbook-to-man (#154590), orphaned 347 days ago
 >      Description: Converter from DocBook SGML into roff -man macros
 >      Reverse Depends: gtk-doc-tools

 If gtk-doc-tools depends on this, perhaps the GTK+ folk care to
 maintain a package that, from the description alone, consists of a
 script and some style sheets?

 >    figurine (#162058), orphaned 290 days ago
 >      Description: An X11 vector graphics drawing program
 >      Reverse Depends: education-graphics

 Not a good one if noone adopts it after ~ 10 months.

 >    g5 (#165500), orphaned 264 days ago
 >      Description: gtk-based 5-in-a-row game

 Not an attractive one?

 >    gdkxft (#173651), orphaned 203 days ago
 >      Description: transparently adds anti-aliased font support to
 >      gtk+-1.2

 AFAIUI, this causes more trouble than not -- which is the reason why it
 never made to GTK+ proper and had to wait for GTK+ 2.

 >    gmail (#170637), orphaned 227 days ago
 >      Description: GNOME mail client using SQL-based vfolders

 SQL-based vfolders are surely a cool thing, but it's not so cool if
 noone is maintaining this.

 >    gnat-glade (#154100), orphaned 351 days ago
 >      Description: Distributed systems in Ada

 No longer required for that lecture, uh?

 >    gnat-glade-doc (#154101), orphaned 351 days ago
 >      Description: GNAT Distributed Systems Annex documentation

 But it's documented!

 >    gnome-objc (#165642), orphaned 263 days ago
 >      Description: objective-c bindings for gtk/gnome (obs.)
 >      Reverse Depends: libobgnome-dev libobgtk-dev libobgnome0 gnome-admin

 No GTK+ 2 yet, uh?  Upstream still alive?

 >    gphone (#161708), orphaned 293 days ago
 >      Description: X/GTK-based internet telephone.

 I'd thought there'd be more people interested in this kind of thing...

 >    gtk-engines-cleanice (#162410), orphaned 287 days ago
 >      Description: CleanIce theme for GTK+ 1.2

 And I thought this was one of thise 37337 engines that are on the
 must-install-in-all-boxes list.

 >    hns2 (#152701), orphaned 364 days ago
 >      Description: Hyper Nikki System
 >      Reverse Depends: hns2

 Ok.  Whatever that means, it's been orphaned for a year.

 >    htmlheadline (#164988), orphaned 267 days ago
 >      Description: Automatically fetch news headlines

 Yet another orphan script?

 >    ipchains-perl (#123694), orphaned 575 days ago
 >      Description: Perl interface to ipchains

 ipchains, no wonder it's orphaned.

 >    judy (#172772), orphaned 210 days ago
 >      Description: C library for creating and accessing dynamic arrays
 >      Reverse Depends: libjudy-dev

 I thought that bogus bogofilter depended on this for building...

 >    junit-freenet (#165504), orphaned 264 days ago
 >      Description: basic reimplementation of the JUnit unit testing
 >      framework

 Aaaaah... Java...

 >    kernel-image-2.2.20-udma100-ext3-i386 (#158152), orphaned 433 days ago
 >      Description: Linux kernel binary image for version
 >      2.2.20-udma100-ext3
 >      Reverse Depends: pcmcia-modules-2.2.20-udma100-ext3

 *blink*

 >    kernel-patch-ethernet-drivers (#158153), orphaned 433 days ago
 >      Description: patches with drivers for ethernet cards

 Which are apparently not needed anymore, uh?

 >    kernel-patch-ext3-2.2 (#158154), orphaned 433 days ago
 >      Description: ext3fs support for Linux 2.2.19 and 2.2.20

 Aaaaah... more old patches...

 >    kernel-patch-ppscsi-2.4 (#158155), orphaned 433 days ago
 >      Description: patch to support SCSI emulation over parallel port

 This at least applies to a current kernel...

 >    korelib (#153507), orphaned 357 days ago
 >      Description: cross-platform library for plugin-based applications
 >      Reverse Depends: libkore-dev

 "kore"... that screams KDE...

 >    leakbug (#170291), orphaned 230 days ago
 >      Description: GNUpdate leakbug tracer library
 >      Reverse Depends: libleakbug-dev

 GNUstep?
 
 >    libdsp (#174118), orphaned 199 days ago
 >      Description: digital signal processing routines (C++)
 >      Reverse Depends: libdsp-dev

 No EE people around?

 >    libgifgraph-perl (#151249), orphaned 377 days ago
 >      Description: perl GIFgraph - Graph Plotting Module for  Perl 5.

 GIF.  Die.

 >    libgnurdf (#170293), orphaned 230 days ago
 >      Description: A library for parsing and processing RDF files
 >      Reverse Depends: libgnurdf-dev

 Not really used anymore, it seems...

 >    libgtkada (#154105), orphaned 351 days ago
 >      Description: Ada binding for the GTK library
 >      Reverse Depends: libgtkada1-gnome libgtkada1-glade libgtkada1-art
 >      libgtkada1-dev libgtkada1-gl gvd

 Oh... something else actually depends on this...

 >    libhdf4 (#162608), orphaned 286 days ago
 >      Description: The Hierarchical Data Format, version 4
 >      Reverse Depends: libhdf4g-run dx-dev h5utils tela dx libhdf4g-dev

 Funny that h5 depends on this.  The fact that DX depends on this makes
 it a bit more intesting though.

 >    libiniconf-perl (#151250), orphaned 377 days ago
 >      Description: perl IniConf - a module for reading .ini-style
 >      configuration files.

 You mean like AppConfig?
 
 >    libming (#166973), orphaned 254 days ago
 >      Description: Library to generate SWF (Flash) Files
 >      Reverse Depends: libming-dev python2.2-ming libming-fonts-openoffice
 >      python2.1-ming libming-util

 Web people around?

 >    libming-fonts-openoffice (#166990), orphaned 254 days ago
 >      Description: Fonts for use with the Ming Library for SWF Creation

 See above.

 >    mmucl (#174117), orphaned 199 days ago
 >      Description: Mark's MUd CLient

 No MUD fans around?  Are the alternatives perhaps better?

 >    mowitz (#175539), orphaned 185 days ago
 >      Description: The "More Widgets" library
 >      Reverse Depends: xsiag xpw libmowitz-dev egon siagoffice-plugins

 Good intentions...

 >    pclock (#156523), orphaned 331 days ago
 >      Description: Clock Dock app for Window Maker window manager

 I maintain and use asclock, thanks, but this is a really nice app,
 should someone be interested, that is.

 >    py-xmlrpc (#161224), orphaned 296 days ago
 >      Description: Implementation of the XML-RPC protocol for Python

 Let me guess... the snake lovers came up with something better?

 >    python-tal (#164483), orphaned 271 days ago
 >      Description: Template Attribute Language
 >      Reverse Depends: python2.2-pagetemplates python-tal

 Same here?

 >    qcl (#162060), orphaned 290 days ago
 >      Description: A Language for quantum computers

 Ermmm...

 >    saml (#162536), orphaned 287 days ago
 >      Description: Simple Algebraic Math Library

 AFAIR this wasn't bad, but a bit too simple.

 >    sciplot (#174123), orphaned 199 days ago
 >      Description: widget for scientific plotting
 >      Reverse Depends: sciplot-dev

 Oooh... this one wasn't that bad, it's actually good, I wonder if
 upstream is dead or something...

 >    siag (#92447), orphaned 830 days ago
 >      Description: The SIAG Office suit
 >      Reverse Depends: xsiag xpw egon tsiag siag-common
 >      education-desktop-other siagoffice-plugins

 We have a winner! (I wonder if that's a bug)

 >    snes9express (#174126), orphaned 199 days ago
 >      Description: GTK+ front-end for snes9x

 Not into Nintendos anymore, uh?

 >    stax (#158145), orphaned 433 days ago
 >      Description: collection of puzzle games similar to Tetris Attack

 YATP.

 >    sted2 (#174596), orphaned 194 days ago
 >      Description: a fast, functional MIDI sequencer

 With a non functional maintainer?

 >    svgalib (#173471), orphaned 205 days ago
 >      Description: Console SVGA display libraries
 >      Reverse Depends: snes9x-svga yh sabre lockvc atari800 cthugha
 >      libggimisc2 uae-suid libsdl1.2debian-all apple2 spectemu-svga
 >      crystalspace xsabre thrust svgalib1-altdev svgalib1 zgv freecraft
 >      lirc-svga xpcd-svga bmv xaos synaesthesia dvisvga quake2 xmame-svga
 >      svgalib-bin chdrv gnuboy-svga abuse lxdoom-svga lincity-svga lcdproc
 >      povray fceu-svga qcam vgacardgames ohphone vlc-plugin-svgalib
 >      zblast-svgalib svncviewer acidwarp liballegro4a-plugin-svgalib
 >      razzle vgagamespack xmame-fx luxman svgalibg1-dev
 >      libggi-target-svgalib

 Of all those people, someone surely has an interest in this.  Or
 perhaps it's time to just drop this crash-inducing security-scary
 package?

 >    taper (#151256), orphaned 377 days ago
 >      Description: Full-screen system backup utility.

 But no backup maintainer (last time I looked at this it was in rather
 bad shape)

 >    tcp4u (#174120), orphaned 199 days ago
 >      Description: tcp4u portable networking API
 >      Reverse Depends: libtcp4u-dev

 n4me.

 >    transformiix (#174344), orphaned 196 days ago
 >      Description: An XSLT processor

 I have read nice things about this, I think.

 >    tse3 (#174124), orphaned 199 days ago
 >      Description: portable sequencer engine in C++

 More MIDI.  There's a theme here.

 >    tux-aqfh (#166977), orphaned 254 days ago
 >      Description: 3D Puzzle Game with Tux the Penguin
 >      Reverse Depends: tux-aqfh junior-games-gl

 Upstream stalled, IIRC.

 >    umodpack (#158509), orphaned 317 days ago
 >      Description: Installer and viewer for .umod-files (Unreal Mod files)

 I could have used this two years ago...

 >    videogen (#122708), orphaned 581 days ago
 >      Description: Create arbitrary-res modelines using hardware
 >      parameters

 Come, fry your old VGA monitor! :-)

 >    vrflash (#171087), orphaned 224 days ago
 >      Description: tool to flash kernels and romdisks to Agenda VR

 No Agenda users?

 >    waba (#174579), orphaned 194 days ago
 >      Description: light weight virtual machine similar to Java

 But not lightweight enough to be maintained...

 >    wavtools (#155263), orphaned 342 days ago
 >      Description: WAV play, record, and compression

 Just like sox! Not really...

 >    xanim (#148507), orphaned 407 days ago (non-free)
 >      Description: Plays multimedia files (animations, pictures, and
 >      sounds)
 >      Reverse Depends: tkxanim xanim-modules

 Go away, you non-free thing.

 >    xanim-modules (#148508), orphaned 407 days ago
 >      Description: Installer for xanim binary-only modules

 And you can follow him.

 >    xkbsel (#172021), orphaned 216 days ago
 >      Description: Tool for defining, selecting, and indicating XKB
 >      keyboards.

 Oh-key.

 >    xm-tool (#154591), orphaned 347 days ago
 >      Description: Tool to generate docs for PFE

 I guess PFE is not orphaned.  *hint* *hint*

 >    xmms-nas (#149620), orphaned 395 days ago
 >      Description: Network Audio System (NAS) Output Plugin for XMMS

 Never got NAS working properly... and I have dropped XMMS like the hot
 potato it is.

 >    xtrojka (#156524), orphaned 331 days ago (non-free)
 >      Description: Fast paced columns-like game

 YATP.  And it's non-free!

 >    xwave (#162607), orphaned 286 days ago
 >      Description: Wave sound file editor

 There are a ton of this, aren't there?

 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Wow, I was getting the impression the list grew as I typed.

-- 
Marcelo