Re: Bug#701536: RM: subsurface -- RoQA; unmaintained package, maintainer MIA

[Cristian Ionescu-Idbohrn <cristian.ionescu-idbohrn@axis.com>]

On Sun, 3 Mar 2013, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
>
> > The maintainer seems MIA since June 2012, not responding to bug
> > reports nor direct mails.
> > The two most recent upstream releases not packaged.
>
> Why would this be a reason to *remove* a package? Especially after
> such a short time. The package hasn't even been orphaened.

Well, "short time" is relative to how slow/fast things move.  In this
case, upstream is _not_ moving slow, I would say :)

> I have seen packages in Debian which haven't received updates from the
> maintainer after much longer periods.

True, but let's not focus too much on that, please.  This is a little bit
different.  Dirk, Linus and many more working with upstream are pushing
things forward at higer pace than average.

> This doesn't necessarrialy mean the maintainer is MIA.

True.  But nothing happened for many moons :)

> Debian is run by volunteers and sometimes, people are busy with more
> important things in life.

Aren't we all?  Volunteers and trying to also cope with the "important
things in life"?  The good thing with such a large community is that
there's a lot of backup.

> This doesn't mean that anyone has the right to immediately remove their
> packages from Debian.

True.  But that doesn't mean either everyone is happy seeing things
stalling?

> I suppose Khalid will be happy to continue to work on the package
> again once he finds the time.

I certainly hope so.  But, unfortunatelly, there was no sign of life from
Khalid for a, relatively, long time.  No RFHs either, AFAICT.

> I don't see any need (and I think it's impolite) to pressure him in such
> a way.

I appologise, in that case.  But that was not my intent.  My intent is to
find a debian maintainer/developer that has the time to work on these 2
packages.


Cheers,

-- 
Cristian