Indefinite leave from Debian.
I've been putting off this mail for a while, and I have no excuse for letting
tasks go unattended so long, but I've been trying to pull myself back into
Debian mode. After ALS, I became very enthusiastic again, and was going to
get into swing of things, but apparently it just does not work. Not with
my consciousness telling me that if I do get involved with Debian stuff as I
used to, my grades will suffer (and boy, did they suffer last year...). Not
with my newly rediscovered love of classical music and theater (am I trying
to get a life? nope, just a different kind of "no life" scenario).
I feel very sad for leaving Debian even if temporarily. Debian has taught me
an amazing number of things about life, software, project management and
numerous other things I won't recount now. It forced me to learn programming
for real, it provided me with my first 2 real jobs, which will probably lead
me into a decent career in the future. However, it looks like it's time for
me to move on. I know I will come back to Debian, but most likely in a
different role. Right now, I am simply overwhelmed with Debian tasks and I
don't have time for any of them. Next time, I know I'll only take as much
as I can take and no more (of course, last year I had infinitely more time,
and that's the reason I am overwhelmed now).
Anyway, here are the things that are getting officially orphaned.
Packages:
battleball - nice game, no bugs i know of
dotfile - ~10 packages coming from one source, upstream author
cooperates greatly and runs Debian)
circus - this one is 1 upstream version behind, they finally released source
under GPL, but last I looked it was not close to being alpha-quality.
exmh - A few outstanding bugs. Great mail reader.
svgatextmode - Might become obsolete soon...
xanim - non-free, but very useful graphics package, no real outstanding bugs
xevil - There is a forked GPL version out there which I never got
around to releasing, email George Caswell <timbuktu@wpi.edu> for the current
location.
xirc - crappy little irc client, qt-based. Don't know if anyone would want it.
xless - tiny package. Good for beginner.
xpaste - same as above.
xwpe - Again, there is a new version developed by different guys than the
original author. The mailing list for the effort is at
xwpe@identical.stu.rpi.edu
Docs:
I am also orphaning the install doc, someone has to pick it up and revise
it for slink. At one point ways back, I promised to revise the Debian section
of LDP documentation in exchange for the ad in LJ (that did happen, right?).
I emailed the people at LJ for a few details on what they wanted to be done,
but never got a response. Anyway, this has to be done even if it's this late.
If you are interested, email me and I'll provide you with some more details
on the matter.
The Debian FAQ-O-Matic needs to be revived again. It needs a leader who would
make it visible again and update it as well as figure out a way to make other
people contribute ;-). There are a few people on the fom@debian.org alias
that are administrators of the FOM, but I haven't heard much from them lately.
But then again, I didn't look at the FOM itself either, so maybe they are
doing a good job.
I am also orphaning the spam handler job. Someone else needs to step up
and do it. The tasks include complaining about spam sent to debian lists
and other @debian.org addresses, maintaining the spam block list that gets
distributed around debian machines, and handling whatever else gets sent
to spam@debian.org
I am also the backup maintainer of debian-keyring. Someone reasonably trusted
should step up to do it instead of me. Contact James Troup if you are
interested.
I believe that's it. Keep up on doing great work! You guys are the best and
you know it!
Igor
--
Proudly running Debian Linux! Linux vs. Windows is a no-Win situation....
Igor Grobman igor@debian.org igor@igoria.net
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