Hi Klaus, Cc: to winnie AT debian DOT org, Deb Maintainer of iTalc...
(2) the Debian italc package and italc-rlp have to checked against each other (I do not known about the differences of italc and italc-rlp and their development history).italc-rlp uses the same mecahnism and packaging as italc. So, this is probably also no big deal, though the key installation mechanism could be more elaborated. italc-rlp at http://rp.skolelinux.de/packages/italc/ . Since the original italc in Debian is kind of abandoned and italc2 is, as far as I know, not near to be usable, we made a fork of italc that contains our addons, which are examination mode and observer notifications plus a "loose interface" with cipux for internet access and examinee account management. Our package contains the necessary Conflicts: fields in order to just replace italc by italc-rpl cleanly, and works fine with Skolelinux as well as plain Debian. We also have a source patch of italc-rlp vs. italc, so it's quite easy to create italc-rlp from italc using a diff.
The probably best way about iTalc in terms of Debian is to contact the package maintainer: Patrick Winnertz <winnie AT debian DOT org>. I'll Cc: this mail to him...
There probably is some more communication needed between upstream italc, italc-rlp and the package maintainer (if these are three differnt parties)...Martin Öhler who has been working on italc-rlp and its packaging, has discussed the issues with the italc authors, but these now seem to be busy developing italc2, which is not useful as development base for us right now.
As far as I know iTalc development is now funded or at least supported by Univention in Bremen (personal communication with sales manager of Univention), this might well be iTalc v2, I don't know about the details. If iTalc v1 is really a dead end upstream then there might be an interest to take a look at your patches for iTalc-rlp by the Debian package maintainer.
However, your patches make only sense for Debian if you will provide a similar functionality in iTalc v2. Otherwise your patches mean a dead end as well. Thus, finding an agreement with iTalc upstream (i.e. Tobias Dörffel) is a necessity anyway.
Or simply fork iTalc completely and better call it something completely different by name and continue it in the future (with all the hassle this will comprise). Hmmm... not a trivial issue, probably...
[this mail contained to subjects (LINBO and iTalc-rlp integration into SL), I split up this mail, but would like to leave the last part here...]
We have an add-on CD containing LINBO and italc-rlp, which we use for school installation.
Could you provide a link?
I would love to see iTalc and LINBO move into Skolelinux...Me, too. It would be great if some people who have the power to make it happen, could attend our developer meeting in February in Zweibrücken/Germany. More about this later.
Well, in terms of power, this wouldn't be. However, I already start thinking of meeting you guys there...
Regards -Klaus
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