Quitting Debian Java packaging - HOWTO best
Hello,
I didn't find any time for quite a long time to maintain my packages,
and before their quality suffers under my lack of attention, I'd prefer
to properly manage my "retirement", and would like to hear your advices,
and possibly take of ownership.
Based on [1], list of packages I'm maintaining right now; they're all
under maintenance of Debian Java Maintainers, but I think it would be
wrong to only remove my name from the Uploaders and say good bye, so
here what I'd think doing:
* freemind - already RFA, someone contacted me a while ago but nothing
came out of it. See below.
* freeplane - branch of FreeMind - I would also RFA or even orphan it.
* knopflerfish-osgi - dependency of Freeplane - RFA or orphan.
* libjcalendar-java - used to be a dependency of FreeMind, not anymore,
dependency of no package, and popcon 52 - candidate for removal!
* libjgoodies-forms-java - dependency of multiple packages, this one is
already managed by the team. I would just remove my name from the
uploaders in SVN.
* libjibx1.1-java, only a dependency of FreeMind, it could be removed as
FreeMind works with Java 1.2 (needs a rebuild though) - then could be
removed as no other dependent package.
* libjibx1.2-java - dependency of multiple packages, this one is already
managed by the team. I would just remove my name from the uploaders in SVN.
* simplyhtml - dependency of FreeMind and Freeplane (works also
standalone) - also RFA or orphan.
Few questions:
1. everybody agree to the approach drawn above?
2. does someone know by heart the procedure to remove a package? (else,
GIYF, I know)
3. Should I RFA or orphan a team-maintained package (or just remove
myself as uploader)?
4. My first experience with RFA of FreeMind was not very positive, so
I'd like to hear your own experience and thinking to do it possibly
better: the first person who contacted me didn't know about SVN, Debian
packaging, etc which is OK (neither did I when I started), I helped them
to find the right links and answered questions as they came, but didn't
take them by the hand, with the thinking that a good future packager
should be able to find their way and not rely on step by step
instructions. Further candidates were put in contact with the first
person, but nothing came out of it. And now the first person doesn't
react anymore. I tend to think I was right with my opinion about good
future packagers, bad luck and try again, but I'd also like to hear
others' opinion.
Thanks, Eric
[1] http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=deb%40zorglub.s.bawue.de
[2] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=622960
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