Re: How much interest in a "debian-science.org" repository?

[Carlo Segre <segre@iit.edu>]

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006, Daniel Leidert wrote:

> Am Mittwoch, den 19.07.2006, 20:20 +0200 schrieb Michael Hanke:
> > On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 12:07:40PM -0400, Kevin B. McCarty wrote:
> > > Dear list,
> > >
> > > Currently there are a fair number of repositories of science-related
> > > unofficial Debian packages out there.  I've been thinking that it might
> > > make sense to consolidate them into a single site.  This would have
> > > several advantages:
> > - snip -
> >
> > I think this is a great idea and Debian-science community could gain a
> > lot with this central repository. But IMHO its success might depend
> > on the details:
> >
> >
> >
> > 1. What Debian versions will be supported (or what Debian derivatives)?
>
> Interesting. I think, there could be ways to support both Debian and
> Ubuntu (e.g. automatic rebuilding of packages, which compile without
> changes under Ubuntu and Debian) and provide the package to Debian and
> Ubuntu in two repositories. Backports might be more complicated.

I have been recommending Ubuntu for those who are initially converting 
from some other OS.  I am very interested in having my packages available 
to them.  If the package is in Debian, there is a good chance that an 
Ubuntu developer has ported it (or just built it), however, I think that 
having a single place to find them for scientists is a great idea.  The 
backport issue is rather important, I think.  I don't like to recommend 
new users to run unstable so I try to make sure my packages are 
installable on sarge.  This is getting a bit harder now with the python 
transition.  I will have to keep separate versions.

Carlo

--
Carlo U. Segre -- Professor of Physics
Associate Dean for Special Projects, Graduate College
Illinois Institute of Technology
Voice: 312.567.3498            Fax: 312.567.3494
Carlo.Segre@iit.edu    http://www.iit.edu/~segre