ubuntu-science
Hello everybody!
My name is Jordan Mantha (LaserJock on irc, etc.) and I am a PhD grad
student in Physical Chemistry. For the last few months I have been
working with the Ubuntu universe repository maintainers (MOTU) [1]
trying to make sure that science related packages in Ubuntu are in good
shape. I had noticed that many science related packages seem to be
somewhat neglected in Ubuntu/Debian in comparison to other areas and I
wanted to help out. I had come across debian-science and Helen
Faulkner's great Debconf 5 talk and wanted to do something similar in
Ubuntu as well. So I started a MOTU team [2] specifically for science
related (which I take loosely to be the math, science, and tex sections)
packaging in Ubuntu. For a little background, if you are not aware, in
Ubuntu the universe repository is team maintained so there is not any
one person responsible for each package but by the MOTU as a whole. By
creating a MOTU team we are able to assign bug reports [3] to the team
as a whole and we are able to coordinate our efforts via a mailing list,
ubuntu-science [4].
So far we have been trying to fix a few bugs (I have been working
with Michael Banck some with ghemical), making sure that science
packages are synced/merged from sid int dapper OK, making sure that
science packages in Ubuntu don't have unmet dependencies or fail to
build from source, and we have been trying to do some packaging of new
apps. Chris Peterman just got EasyChem [5] included in Ubuntu and he is
also working on FlowDesigner [6]. I am working on PlotDrop [7] (a
drag-n-drop gnuplot frontend). The MOTU use a community contribution
review tool called REVU [8] to add programs packaged by the general
community to the universe repository. I think it is very helpful for
scientific apps because it is an easy way to get a new package or patch
included for people why don't have the time/motivation to become
full-fledged developers.
Ok, so the reason I sent this rather long email is that I think it
would be a benefit to both the Debian and Ubuntu communities if we keep
each other informed at least and work together where possible. I am
encouraging the MOTUScience team members to at least email this list
when a new science package has been added to Ubuntu so that we don't get
a lot of duplication of work. It would be great to also file an ITP and
find a DD to sponsor. It would be helpful to us if we had some sort of
list (maybe on DebianScienceSponsoring) of DDs willing to sponsor
scientific packages. We get so much from the Debian community that it
would great for Ubuntu community to be able to give something back. I
you have any suggestions of things we can do don't hesitate to email the
ubuntu-science list.
Thanks,
Jordan Mantha
[1] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU
[2] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTUScience
[3] http://launchpad.net/people/motuscience/+assignedbugs
[4] http://tauware.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-science
[5] http://easychem.sourceforge.net/
[6] http://flowdesigner.sourceforge.net/
[7] http://icculus.org/~jcspray/plotdrop/
[8] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/REVU and http://revu.tauware.de/
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