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Re: agent-based simulation



On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Scott Christley wrote:

(http://www.swarm.org
) which is an agent-based simulation toolkit that I would like to
package into Debian.  It was suggested that I email this list as
debian-science has a broader view.  I looked through the metapackages
listed on the wiki, but its unclear which is appropriate.

There is no need for any Debian package to be listed in a metapackage.
At first there should be a package.  If a certain group inside Debian
(like Debian Science) sees any sense to include it into the list of
dependencies of their metapackages it just *can* be added or if it makes
sense a new metapackage can be created.  Those metapackages are for
the comfort of specific user groups - but there is no need at all that
any package has to be listed there.  The Debian Science team just tries
to work for the greater comfort of scientific users - if you think that
the Swarm package might profit from beeing listed in one of the sections
or if you think it makes sense to create a new one - just feel free to
make a suggestion.  The system we use in Debian Science is quite new -
it perhaps needs some adjustment.  Hope this clarifies the meta package
aspect of your question.

Agent-based
simulation is a general methodology and can be used for biology,
social science, or other computational sciences.  Is debian-science
interested in modeling and simulation software?  Can anybody suggest
an appropriate group?

You are in the right group here.  This mailing list is read by
scientists using Debian and several of them are also working in the
team that cares for packaging.  The specific details how to group
maintain packages are mentioned in the Debian Science policy which
was announced here on this list [1].  Just feel free to check out the
recent git version.

I'm happy to do all of the packaging work, so no need for you to spend time on that.

This is really great and we warmly welcome your effort.

I'm new to the Debian community so maybe I'm going about this the wrong way.

No, you are perfectly right on this mailing list because group maintaining
a package might be the easiest way to move foreward.  If you have a general
package which is not science related you might be better at debian-mentors
or debian-devel list which are doing general help for packaging.  But if I
understood you right you seem to be able to cope with the packaging techniques
and asking for specific details here is fine.  It as shown that it is much
easier to find a sponsor for your package (which is needed if you are not
(yet) an official Debian developer) if you are asking in a group where
people are potentially interested in your work - so you are fine here.

Essentially I'm asking if Debian-science is the right place for this software, and if so what is the best way to get started?

If I were you I would ask on alioth.debian.org for a guest account.
Once this is done ask here for adding this account to the Debian Science
packaging team to be able to use the according repository for packaging.
Meanwhile you might like to read the mentioned policy and have a look
into the packaging stuff which are inside this repository - several things
might be cut and pasted from there.  Once you have something to present
just announce it here so other people might have a look at your work.

Kind regards and thanks for your interest in Debian

       Andreas.


[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-science/2008/05/msg00217.html

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