The future of TeX in Debian: *WHO* is responsible?

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Hi,

Norbert has already written that he will be mostly unavailable in July,
August and September.  I am starting my new job on August 1st and don't
know how much time for Debian that will leave me.  In any case I had
planned to take about three months completely off from Debian work, in
order to concentrate on the new task and on getting my new life style
"running" (living away from my wife during the week, traveling 5+x hours
one-way each weekend - and we hope that she'll be able to move work
nearer to me soon, and then I'll be looking for a flat or house with
garden for us two to finally settle down a bit).

This would mean that the TeX Task Force is without its main active
members for at least two months.  I don't know about Norberts plans
after that, but I guess he'll find time to do the necessary maintainance
work in case I cannot come back as before?  Anyway, August and September
are a problem.  

The texlive packages will probably be kind of stabilized by then, even
if not rock solid.  But on the other hand this would be the moment for
the transition to lenny, with new issues to look at.  Apropos lenny:
The release team has decided that they assign one of their release
assistants to each major team in Debian, and Martin Zobel-Helas is
responsible for the TeX team.  

>From our side, they'd like to have a single contact person, too, and
they picked me.  I told him that I'm unsure about my future commitment,
and that I'd rather talk to the team before taking the job.

So the questions are:

1. Is anyone among the other regulars willing to be the primary TeX
   maintainer in August and September (doesn't need to be a DD)?

   Or should we somehow declare the packages to be unmaintained,
   NMU-open etc. during this time?

   A third alternative would be that I try to be available as much as
   possible, and get help from someone else.  I cannot promise anything,
   but it looks like I'll be able to use my "landlady's" DSL line, so I
   would have technical connectivity without much delay, but I cannot
   say anything about my personal resources.  Still, we might get by if
   someone or a couple of people say that they are able to do the
   "frontdesk" work on the list and contact me for questions or
   decisions they don't want to be responsible for, and I do the
   building and testing if needed (since that is well established here).

2. Who is going to be the contact person for the release team for the
   lenny release cycle?

   I think it doesn't matter if that person is not available now, but it
   would be good if the long-term perspectives were a bit clearer than
   they are for me now (and I don't know about Norbert).

Regards, Frank

-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)