Re: pandoc depwaits

[Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk>]

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On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 02:57:36PM -0700, John MacFarlane wrote:
>+++ Joachim Breitner [Jul 29 09 02:09 ]:
>> [Moving this back on the list]
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Am Dienstag, den 28.07.2009, 16:50 -0700 schrieb John MacFarlane:
>> > +++ Jonas Smedegaard [Jul 28 09 11:35 ]:
>> > > On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:21:19AM +0200, Joachim Breitner wrote:
>> > > >It’s always a bit tricky to take over a packer properly. But if 
>> > > >he does not respond, and his packages are uninstallable right 
>> > > >now, that is sufficient to do NMUs at least. So just go ahead 
>> > > >and work on it, and it’s dependencies as needed, but do it with 
>> > > >NMUs and leave him in the Maintainer field for now.
>> > > >
>> > > >I’m CC’ing another DD who today asked for the state of pandoc, 
>> > > >and might be interested in helping.
>> > >
>> > > I agree with Joachim that lack of activity on its own is a fine 
>> > > excuse for NMUing a package.
>> > >
>> > > Another option which I recommend here is to do a "friendly 
>> > > takeover": Hinting as "O"rphaned and then "RFA"dopting it is only 
>> > > necessary if the new maintainer is unknown.  An explicit 
>> > > aknowledgement of letting go of maintainership need not be public 
>> > > - especially when backed by implicitly demonstrating lack of 
>> > > interest in the package.
>> > >
>> > > So, in short, I strongly recommend to simply prepare and upload a 
>> > > new release with new maintainer, mentioning "friendly takeover" 
>> > > in the changelog and nicely thanking the former maintainer for 
>> > > his great work in the past.
>> > >
>> > > I am, as Joachim says, an active user of pandoc, but have no 
>> > > knowledge of Haskell (and no strong interest in learning it 
>> > > either).  I do have quite a bit of knowledge of packaging in 
>> > > general, as I participate in development and package maintainance 
>> > > of CDBS.
>> > >
>> > > I would be happy to join a team for maintaining the Pandoc 
>> > > packaging, if the package would use CDBS (as opposed to classic 
>> > > explicit debian/rules rules or debhelper v7 shortenings).
>> >
>> > Jonas,
>> >
>> > That's terrific!  I don't know too much about debian packaging, so 
>> > I don't understand the part after the 'if'.  But I can handle the 
>> > Haskell part if you can handle the debian-specific part.  Pandoc 
>> > now has a fairly standard cabal build process, so (except for a few 
>> > details like man pages and wrapper scripts) it should be much like 
>> > any other cabalized Haskell package.  I think the debian haskell 
>> > team has a fairly standard way of doing these things, so it should 
>> > be mostly a matter of copying an existing package that is done in 
>> > the standard way.
>> >
>> > Note that pandoc 0.46, currently in debian, is a native debian 
>> > package, but going forward it won't be.
>> >
>> > Pandoc depends on two other packages that may need work: pcre-light 
>> > and highlighting-kate.  Both were maintained by Recai Oktas.  I'm 
>> > the upstream developer for highlighting-kate; pcre-light is by Don 
>> > Stewart.
>> >
>> > > As for workspace for team work, I would prefer to use Git (as 
>> > > opposed to SVN or other VCSes) and would suggest to not create 
>> > > mailinglist or any other infrastructure at first, other than 
>> > > simply creating the VCS.  This also means that we need not 
>> > > request an Alioth group - just use collab-maint.
>>
>> great to see pandoc in good hands. Note that pandoc is also a haskell 
>> library, so I would appreciate if you would stay in touch with 
>> ddebian-haskell. At the moment, nothing Build-Depends on pandoc, but 
>> when that changes, uploads need to be a bit coordinated. Just make 
>> sure you inform d-haskell about important changes.
>>
>> I’m adopting the two dependencies, pcre-light and highlighting-kate, 
>> for the Debian Haskell Group, so that you are ready to go.
>
>Joachim,
>
>I forgot to mention another pandoc dependency: zip-archive. It's a 
>standard cabalized library, and I think all of its dependencies are 
>already debianized.
>
>I haven't heard from Jonas -- not sure if he is interested in working 
>on the pandoc package.  If not, I can try it myself, using cpphs as a 
>model, but I may need some guidance.

I am interested in helping maintain pandoc.

I already (last week) prepared a packaging of zip-archive, but it seems 
that the Haskell group should rather maintain that package, and I am not 
in the mood to learn a new VCS at the moment (the Haskell group seems to 
only use Darcs, not Git which I prefer).

So I suggest that Joachim (or others from the Haskell team) take care of 
zip-archive.

John: I suggest that we maintain Pandoc using Git at the collab-maint 
area of the Debian Alioth service. That area is writable by all Debian 
developers so is easy for anyone deeply involved in Debian to 
participate in our packaging if need be. I guess you are not a Debian 
Developer - so here is the steps needed by you to start working that 
way:

1) Create an account at https://alioth.debian.org/account/register.php

2) Request membership at https://alioth.debian.org/projects/collab-maint

Both parts are obviously only necessary if you have not done them 
already related to other Debian projects.

When requesting membership of collab-maint, please mention as reason 
that you need it to participate in the Git maintainance of Pandoc.

Hopefully when you are done with above, I have prepared and released a 
git for you to clone at that collab-maint area, and we can work from 
there :-)


  - Jonas

- -- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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