Re: Upstream maintainers are sleeping (Was: Reviving Debian QA
On Tuesday 30 March 1999, at 0 h 24, the keyboard of Martin Schulze
<joey@finlandia.Infodrom.North.DE> wrote:
> Quite easy. Many upstream maintainers aren't aware that some Debian
> people picked up their package and worked on them.
As a rule, I *always* ask for permission of upstream authors. Even when the
package is GPL and I don't really need the permission. That way, I'm sure the
author actually read my message and processed it. If it does not reply, I
insist, with exponential backoff. Until now, it always succeeded, even with
biologists (which typically never include a licence in the tarball and do not
show the slightest interest in legal matters).
That way, they are informed there is a Debian package. I tell them about
source packages and how to get the diff, too. It is not a legal obligation,
but I think it is simply polite. And it's more efficient: it increases the
probability that they inform me of new releases, that they direct to me Linux
questions, etc.
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