RFS: fluid-soundfont -- Fluid (R3) General MIDI SoundFont

["Toby Smithe" <tsmithe@ubuntu.com>]

Dear mentors and Debian Multimedia Team,

I am looking for a sponsor for my package "fluid-soundfont".

* Package name    : fluid-soundfont
  Version         : 3-1
  Upstream Author : Frank Wen <getfrank@gmail.com>
* URL             :
http://tsmithe.users.ubuntustudio.org/fluid-soundfont_r3.tar.gz
* License         : MIT
  Section         : sound

It builds these binary packages:
fluid-soundfont-gm - Fluid (R3) General MIDI SoundFont (GM)
fluid-soundfont-gs - Fluid (R3) General MIDI SoundFont (GS)

The package is lintian clean.

The package can be found on mentors.debian.net:
- URL: http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/f/fluid-soundfont
- Source repository: deb-src http://mentors.debian.net/debian unstable
main contrib non-free
- dget http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/f/fluid-soundfont/fluid-soundfont_3-1.dsc

The upload would fix these bugs: 466612, and enable a hell of a lot of
functionality in MIDI-related packages. I would like to quote from my
Ubuntu Feature Freeze Exception request[0]:

"As you can probably tell, to provide a SoundFont in the Ubuntu
archives will be a vast increase in usability in all software dealing
with MIDI synthesis, as previously we were unable to offer an
out-of-the-box functioning system. Whilst we have freepats, that
leaves a lot to be desired, and a SoundFont is far more desirable than
the mass of old patch files.

Inclusion of fluid-soundfont will enable users to play back MIDI files
with any number of software synthesisers (and, if gstreamer-midi is
enabled, this will include gstreamer-based software) and compose music
(with packages such as mscore or rosegarden), to list just two tasks."

I am very keen to improve the state of MIDI applications in Debian and
Ubuntu, and fluid-soundfont will definitely aid in that.

I hope this can be swiftly uploaded, as the longer it waits, the less
likely it will be allowed into Ubuntu Hardy.

Thanks,

--Toby Smithe