On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 00:24 +0200, Jan Hauke Rahm wrote: > Neil, > > thanks for your comprehensive mail. To be honest you didn't bolster me > up with your mail. It was my intention to ensure that you stopped to think before proceeding so that was almost inevitable. > The package I was talking about already has a version in debian and I'm > thinking about adopting it because it was removed from testing. Packages are not removed without good reason and this package seems to be no exception. Getting it into a fit state for reintroduction will not be easy. > One of > the reasons was included code that would be duplicated in debian. So I > already had in mind much of what you wrote and I really feel like you're > right at all. > I guess I need to reconsider my intention... I can only echo Don - there are lots of other packages that will be so much easier to manage. Drop this one and find another, possibly using these as guidelines in your selection: 1. PHP is not easy and PHP packages can be a real headache for all concerned. Pick a different language, it is much easier that way - promise. 2. Compiled packages are not scary - the documentation is inherently biased towards compiled packages and creating a Debian package from ./configure;make;make install is, IMHO, always the easiest way to learn Debian packaging. 3. Packages that have been removed from Debian are *not* easier to package than new packages - by definition, all removed packages have serious or grave errors that the previous maintainer was unable to fix. The tiny benefit of already having the (outdated) packaging files to hand is massively outweighed by the amount of work that is usually required to fix the bugs that got the package removed in the first place. (You usually also have to rewrite large portions of the old packaging code to catch up with the current Standards-Version so it really can be a lot more work.) Debian doesn't remove packages just because the previous maintainer made such a 'good' job that s|he got bored with maintaining the package. :-) -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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