Re: Bug#740702: ITP: eso-midas -- European Southern Observatory Munich Image Data Analysis System
Dear Julian,
On 04.03.2014 20:52, Julian Taylor wrote:
> midas is unsupported upstream and should die, I don't think there is
> much point in packaging it.
What do you mean with "unsupported"? The current release is released on
Jan 12, 2014. The latest history is:
13SEPpl1.2 - 2014-01-12
13SEPpl1.1 - 2013-11-02
13SEPpl1.0 - 2013-09-07
12FEBpl1.3 - 2012-06-23
12FEBpl1.2 - 2012-04-23
12FEBpl1.1 - 2012-04-02
12FEBpl1.0 - 2012-02-02
11SEPpl1.2 - 2011-12-06
11SEPpl1.1 - 2011-11-07
11SEPpl1.0 - 2011-10-07
which shows a regular (~yearly) version cycle with bugfix releases after
each (including the latest one). Neither the web page nor the included
documentation claim the end of maintenance. Just the "direct Midas
support" ended in 2012:
"As of May 2012 there will be no more direct Midas support offered by
ESO. Instead, users who have problems or questions concerning ESO-MIDAS
running on their systems are advised to use the moderated mailing list
midas-users@eso.org for obtaining feedback and solutions to their
questions from other users."
This sounds like the normal case for a software package. Take eso-skycat
as an example for a software unmaintained by ESO (but maintenance has
taken over by Starlink, so it is still not dead).
I agree that ESO-MIDAS is an old piece of software, with a design from
the early nineties, quite ugly etc. However, is has its user base. And
since I was asked for some help in installing ESO-MIDAS, I think it is
still a good idea to have it packaged. When searching on the net, you
also still find some recent tutorials on using ESO-MIDAS.
Astronomers seem to be quite conservative when it comes to software
tools: IRAF is 20 years old now, and still in use (and development).
Skycat goes back to 1996, given up by ESO in 2008, and still somehow
alive. Or have a look, on what packages SAOImage DS9 is based on
(funtools, blt, tkhtml3): zombies everywhere. Heavily used today.
Best regards
Ole
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