Re: Removal requests submitted for CERNLIB packages
On 03/05/2011 02:57 AM, Lifeng Sun wrote:
> Hi Kevin,
>
> The FTBFS bug of CERNLIB is actually an issue of diffutils, when I
> built it after squeeze released last month, the bug disappeared, so I
> think this bug could be closed now.
>
> I would like to adopt the CERNLIB-related packages if allowed.
>
>
> BTW: I am preparing to package ROOT.
You are aware of http://wiki.debian.org/DebianScience/ROOT, I suppose.
Kevin, Christian et al have all long proven that the CERNLIB and friends
do work with Debian. The question is if we find a sufficiently high number
of users also at work. A few days ago came Scientific Linux 6.0 [1], which
means: not too soon, probably.
It would certainly help Debian and Ubuntu with it if that Scientific Linux
was based on either of the two distros since that distro would come with
quite some extra of brains and eyeballs for us. And if I am allowed to
dream about a contribution of more and more of CERN's and Fermilab's
Free software to Debian, i.e. having some their sysadmins and scientists
as members of our Debian Society, this would be of enormous value to
the IT landscape because of all the education and routine that is
spread with it. Just feel reminded what alone Yahoo's MapReduce did to
(many of) us.
We may rest assured that the folks at CERN and Fermilab do know about
Debian and the advantages that a community-run distribution brings for
them. At least on some lower levels. And also some higher ups I know to
have observed that Debian was the first distro (mostly thanks to the
NorduGrid folks in Uppsala around DM Mattias) that brought grid computing
(a core infrastructure for those international groups gathering at CERN
and Fermilab) into a regular Linux distribution with its Globus (used by
about every grid middleware) and ARC packages (used by the NorduGrid).
My hunch is that eventually we will see the efforts behind Scientific
Linux merge with some major Linux distribution. And the reason most likely
will be to prove to their funding parties of their impetus to give back to the
world as much they can - independent from their hunt after some quark.
This may be Fedora or Debian, but they will come, I am sure. That they
have Scientific Linux and are Open Source already is per se already quite
remarkable.
What may be helping to speed up that process could be
* identify a series of industries that should have some interest in the
technologies maintained through CERN (car industry for crash tests
maybe?, geologists?, astronomers? ..) and a blog about it
* more personal contacts between our distro and CERN-affiliated scientists
via conferences maybe?
* some larger research group that decides to use Debian rather than
scientific linux
* maybe that group could also get some industry/research money to
describe the CERNLIB and friends for regular industries
* ...?
Many greetings
Steffen
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