Re: any volunteer for packaging "reduce" ?
On Sun, Sep 04, 2011 at 09:18:08PM +0200, Karolina Kalic wrote:
> >> >> for packaging
> >> >> http://kinemage.biochem.duke.edu/software/reduce.php
> >> >> would be most welcome.
>
> Should we really be interested for something that is 3 years old? I
> just want to know about policy of Debian Med for this? I think that we
> shouldn't keep software that is dead upstream in Debian, except for
> some dependency reason. But, that is just my opinion, correct me if
> I'm wrong.
It is probably not a categorical exclusion reason if software is not
brandnew and upstream is obviosely dead. However, you definitely have
some point and we should be aware that packages like this might need
some consideration before spending some work into it.
Finally we should draw our decision based on the user base of the
program itself or of programs which depend from it. In some case such
unmaintained programs do show an astonishing large user base and our
users are finally our main reason to do some work. We need to verify
whether we might be able to cope with some code maintenance which might
be needed regarding security issues as well as porting issues. Usually
we get help from porter teams, security or mentors in doing so.
The policy inside Debian Med is the same as in general Debian and it is
oriented on helping users. Imagine a user who might need some technical
help in installing the program and he does not find a package for it in
any distribution but Debian.
In short: Yes, it is correct to think twice about orphaned upstream
software. But if the result is, that it is interesting for a certain
amount of users and the program is technically in a shape that we can
handle it - than it should be packaged (if some volunteer does the
work - in many cases there is just no need to stop anybody from doing
something because there is actually nobody doing the work.)
Kind regards
Andreas.
--
http://fam-tille.de
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