Re: Bug#202244 Speak-freely Removed from Debian
> This package has been removed from Debian unstable because it is
> orphaned upstream and has reached its end-of-life.
Speak-freely is not abandoned and should remain in Debian.
It was orphaned upstream, but it has NOT reached its end-of-life.
Development has moved to http://speak-freely.sourceforge.net/
and it has been taken over by new developers who are listed here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/memberlist.php?group_id=87107
Speak-freely is a mature, stable program that works very well. Change of
upstream maintainers is quite irrelevant. The (fourmilab) mailing list
is still very active, receiving several messages a day last time I
checked. The program works well today, and will work well next year.
For the very reasons that John mentions in his "End of Life Announcement"[*]
I think it very important that speak-freely *STAYS* in Debian. The world
needs a Free cross-platform VoIP program that will let a 486 in Mongolia
on a crummy copper wire communicate with a broadband connected machine in
London. X-Windows, anti-aliased toolkits, & broadband should not be a
requirement as are needed with the available alternatives. The answer is
surely not rolling over and giving up because of nefarious designs by
some US corporates.
[*] http://www.fourmilab.ch/speakfree/
With the new version (7.6a) recently out, this package is both secure
and bug free for the most part. Also the new version removes the IDEA
code that was keeping this package in non-us/non-free and will allow
compilation with full duplex support (debian bug #24,674 from 1998!).
If you do not wish to maintain the package anymore please orphan it
instead of just removing it without warning. It's a simple package, I'm
sure someone else could take it up without too much of a burden (maybe
one of the Ham radio folk). Johannes has already gone to the trouble of
putting together a new package for it for Bob's sake!
(see this bug's log at http://bugs.debian.org/202244 for the package)
It's small, it works, it fills an important niche, people use it, it's
not woefully out of date (upstream anyway), I really don't see why it
should be removed.
regards,
Hamish
ps-
Where I am at the end of the world, we pay $0.25/megabyte for our
internet usage, on top of monthly and annual fees. The phone charges are
just as bad and I actually get better sound quality using Speak-freely.
Through two firewalls, NAT, and the cable modem cartels at the other end
even.
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