FAQ: Work-Needing and Prospective Packages
Work-Needing and Prospective Packages for Debian GNU/Linux
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1. General Questions
1.1. What is Debian GNU/Linux
Please read the Debian GNU/Linux FAQ. The Debian GNU/Linux WWW server
is at http://www.debian.org/ , the FAQ is located at
http://www.debian.org/FAQ/ . The FAQ is available via FTP at
ftp.debian.org:/debian/doc .
1.2. Purpose of this document
This document is intended to identify areas that need your
contributions. It provides information that hopefully changes quite often,
so it supplements the Debian GNU/Linux FAQ.
1.3. What do I need to know in order to become a package maintainer ?
Please read the documents at
ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/doc/package-developer/ .
The packaging guidelines are included in the dpkg-1.1.0 package.
You should subscribe to the debian-devel mailing list, details are
given in the FAQ.
1.4. Feedback
Please send additions, corrections, suggestions and wishes to Sven
Rudolph <sr1@inf.tu-dresden.de>. Please mention to which version of
this document your comments refer.
The Id of this version is :
$Id: packages,v 1.12 1996/03/28 19:07:11 sr1 Exp sr1 $
2. Packages that have no current maintainer
Packages listed in this section are still part of Debian (unless they
have too many bugs), but the maintainer had reasons to not continue
maintaining it. (Remember: Debian is mainly produced by volunteers who
are not paid for maintaining Debian packages.)
If you find that you need to discontinue maintaining a package, send
me an e-mail.
If you believe that the following list is incomplete, i.e., that there
are other packages in the Debian distribution that currently have no
active maintainer, send me an e-mail.
If you would like to maintain one of the packages listed here, send me
an e-mail.
previously maintained by Ian Murdock <imurdock@debian.org> :
* acm
* amd
* aout-librl (this package might be unnecessary now)
* elisp-manual
* emacs
* glibcdoc
* metamail
* pmake
previously maintained by Charles Morgan <cdmorgan@uncc.edu> :
* kbd
3. Packages that the maintainer wants to give away
Packages listed in this section are still part of Debian, but the
maintainer wants to find a new maintainer. It isn't as urgent to find
a new maintainer as in the previous section.
If you maintain Debian packages that you would like to hand off, send
me an e-mail, then I will add this package to this section.
If you would like to maintain one of the packages listed here, write
to the current maintainer of this package.
currently maintained by Sven Rudolph <sr1@inf.tu-dresden.de> :
* seyon
currently maintained by David Engel <david@ods.com> :
* tclX
currently maintained by Christian Linhart <chris@cosy.sbg.ac.at> :
* statserial
* tgif
* xarchie
4. Packages that someone is working on
Programs listed in this section aren't yet available as Debian
packages, but someone is working on providing a package.
If you would like to work on one of these packages please contact the
responsible person listed below.
Chris Fearnley <cjf@netaxs.com> :
* dome (http://www.netaxs.com/~cjf/jpegs.html)
* and probably : xli, Tix, povray
krs@caos.aamu.edu (Karl R. Sackett) :
* CLX - Common Lisp Xlib implementation
* PCL - Portable Common Loops for GCL
Dale Miller <dale@csd.uwo.ca> :
* lclint (ftp://larch.lcs.mit.edu/pub/Larch/lclint/ )
Richard Kaszeta <kaszeta@me.umn.edu> :
* xmotd
Mike Wilson <cmwilson@uncc.edu> :
* mule
Sven Rudolph <sr1@inf.tu-dresden.de> :
* xbill
* NCSA Mosaic (waiting for 2.7)
"behan (b.) webster" <behanw@bnr.ca>
* sxpc (Simple Xwindows Protocol Compresser)
* ncsa-httpd
* qfax (multi-user e-mail extension to efax).
CD Rasmussen <cdr@sme.siemens.com>:
* xautolock
wendal@onyx.southwind.net:
* tkHTML
Darren <torin@daft.com> :
* netpbm, mew, giftool
"Prud'homme Christophe" <prudhomm@lions.asci.fr> :
* Xemacs
Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels@debian.het.net> :
* INN
Dirk.Eddelbuettel@qed.econ.queensu.ca :
* tob
* BBDB (for Emacs: Big Brother Data Base, a rolodex with hooks into
VM, GNUS, and RMAIL)
Michael Alan Dorman <mdorman@lot49.med.miami.edu> :
* glimpse, glimpsehttpd
Warwick Harvey <warwick@cs.mu.OZ.AU> :
* mercury (a purely declarative logic programming language with strong
modes, strong types, and strong determinism)
Patrick.Weemeeuw@kulnet.KULeuven.ac.be :
* PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules)
( http://www.pilgrim.umass.edu/pub/osf_dce/RFC/rfc86.0.txt )
marcus@sysc.pdx.edu :
* CLISP
David H. Silber <dhs@firefly.com> :
* dbackup - A Debian-specific backup program.
* lockstep - A program to keep various directory trees in sync.
* uucpconfig - A configuration program which will become part of my
uucp package.
Karl R. Sackett <krs@caos.aamu.edu> :
* libobjects - GNU Objective-C class library
* wily - work-alike of Acme programming environment for Plan9
* 9wm - X window manager which emulates Plan9's 8-1/2 window manager
* 9term - terminal emulator similar to 8-1/2 windows
* libXg - UTF-2 fonts for Sam and 9term
* exmh - X user interface for MH mail
* faces - visual list monitor
Brian Sulcer <bsulcer@gibson.com> :
* vile (vi-like editor)
* rogue
* umoria
Robert Leslie <rob@mars.org> :
* GIMP (The General Image Manipulation Program)
http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~gimp
Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.north.de> :
* cached: Harvest Cached, http, ftp, gopher, wais proxy
* vtwm: Virtual Window Manager for X11
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@pilgrim.umass.edu> :
* perl libwww
* perl CGI-modules
5. Programs that aren't available yet in Debian
Programs listed in this section aren't yet available as Debian
packages, but there has been an expressed desire to include them.
If you want to create a Debian package, send me an e-mail.
5.1. Programming and development:
* GNU Pascal.
* UPS - the X-based debugger. Probably not worth building until we've
switched to ELF. (There are Linux-specific patches around.)
* checker
* vgrind (formats source code for printing)
* Scheme->C
* SCM - Scheme interpreter which will soon be the basis of
the GNU extension language.
* SLIB.
* CLISP - Common Lisp interpreter
* ECoLisp - a Common Lisp compiler that produces faster code but
isn't as widely used as GCL
* CLiCC - Common Lisp compiler that generates stand-alone apps
(rather large ones, though)
* GNAT (GNU Ada Translator)
* Postgres95
5.2. Mail software:
* tkmail
* mailtool
5.3. USENET news software:
* nn.
* strn.
5.4. Math packages:
* SC (the spreadsheet). (oleo is already available)
* GNU calc (see the Emacs list ...).
* SNNS Stuttgart Neural Network Simulator (ftp.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de)
* SciLab
* Yorick
* MuPAD (computer algebra tool from University of Paderborn, Germany
http://gauss-mb.uni-paderborn.de/~cube/ , please look at the
license conditions.)
* calctool
* felt
* LAPACK and BLAS (numerical libraries,
http://nils.wustl.edu/schiotz/lapack-linux.html )
5.5. Graphics:
* SISCAD, a CADD package.
ftp://hrz-ws26.hrz.uni-kassel.de/pub/machines/LINUX/misc/siscad
* Kubota Graphics Corporation's now-PD 3-D visualization system, Dore'.
5.6. Misc Tools:
* zoo/unzoo (packer)
* binhex
5.7. Editors:
* NEdit ( http://fnpspa.fnal.gov/nirvana/nedit.html , requires Motif)
* jed (small emacs-like)
5.8. Games:
* rocks and diamonds
* xgalaga (space-invaders style game)
* abuse
* xibc (backgammon)
* xevil
* xjewel
5.9. X11:
* Andrew
* ImageMagick (image viewer) (This package would belong into the
non-free section if it provides the creation of GIF files.)
* XView (at least a library package--the full XView distribution,
with window manager, etc. would also be nice, but not as important)
* plan (calender with many functions)
* grok (database with many functions)
* tkps (tk-based "top")
* xmem
* xidle
5.10. Communication
* BBS (Bulletin Board System) Software
* hylafax (http://www.vix.com/hylafax)
a fax server with add-ons for alphanumeric paging
5.11 TeX
* tmview (svgalib DVI viewer)
Kpathsea support should be added and the original author is already
aware of this. Contact him first.
5.12 Networking
* other www servers (Spinner ( http://spinner.infovav.se/ ),
WN ( http://hopf.math.nwu.edu/docs/overview.html) )
* xinetd (replacement for inetd with many enhancements)
* ftptool (This requires the not-yet-available XView libraries.)
5.13 System Tools
* backup software (kbackup, nbackup)
Please note that there are plans for a Debian-specific backup tool
( http://www.access.digex.net/~dhs/debian/debian.html ).
taper is already available, and tob will be available
* apsfilter (a printing filter)
(ftp://ftp-i2.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/pkg/APSfilter )
(It is quite difficult to write a universal and easy configuration
mechanism for these printing filters.)
magicfilter is already available
* IBCS2 emulator
5.14 Text utilities
* HTML editors (tkHTML, asWedit, auc-html.el)
* mpage (genscript is already available)
6. Programs that someone should write
This section contains suggestions/wishes for programs. There is no
known implementation of such a program for Linux.
* amspell (ms-dos) like spell checker, i.e. a spell checker what
checks the complete text first, searching for alternatives (on the
fly) and asking for user action at the very end of the checking
process. This saves much time on low memory machines.
7. Beyond packages
This section lists some areas of future development of Debian that
cannot be assigned to specific packages.
Please note that you may need to know a lot about the specific topic
and the current Debian architecture, so this probably shouldn't be
your first Debian related contribution.
* internationalization / localization
* documentation and translations
* Debian GNU/Linux for other platforms (m68k, alpha, sparc)
* shadow passwords ( ftp://ftp.ists.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/linux/shadow/ )
(Previous versions didn't have a free-enough license, so Debian cannot use
these.)
(PAM (see above) is an alternative approach)
--
Sven Rudolph <sr1@inf.tu-dresden.de> ; WWW : http://www.sax.de/~sr1/
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