Work-Needing and Prospective Packages for Debian GNU/Linux
Work-Needing and Prospective Packages for Debian GNU/Linux
wnpp@debian.org
$Id: packages.sgml,v 1.70 1998/02/09 23:38:47 johnie Exp $
1. General Questions
1.1. Before reading this document
You should have read the Debian GNU/Linux FAQ
<http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/>.
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. Getting newer versions of this document
Newer versions of this document will be available via FTP and HTTP:
o <http://www.debian.org/doc/prospective-packages.html>
o <ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/doc/package-developer/prospective-
packages.txt>
o <ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/doc/package-developer/prospective-
packages.html>
1.4. Feedback
Please send additions, corrections, suggestions and wishes to the WNPP
maintainer wnpp@debian.org. Please mention to which version of this
document your comments refer.
Try to change the subject of your mail to reflect the packages you're
talking about, it makes it easier for to sort out all "Re: Work-
Needing and Prospective Packages" emails. A suggested subject line
reads "WNPP: removing foopackage" or "WNPP: working on barpackage".
Thanks.
2. Recent Changes
2.1. Since version 1.69 1998/02/02
o Ed Petron <> is working on the Purdue Compiler Construction Tool
Set (PCCTS).
o Leland Olds <mailto:olds@eskimo.com> is working on YADE (Yet
Another Diagram Editor).
o Jim Pick <mailto:jim@jimpick.com> is working on the mico ORB
<http://diamant-atm.vsb.cs.uni-frankfurt.de/~mico/>.
o Added sfio
<http://www.oasis.leo.org/perl/src/independent/sfio.dsc.html> (a C
library stdio replacement) and FPK pascal <http://sun01.brain.uni-
freiburg.de/%7Eklaus/fpk-pas/>, GNU Nana
<http://wattle.cs.ntu.edu.au/homepages/pjm/nana-home/>, and gddb to
packages someone should make.
3. Orphaned packages
(An orphaned package is a package that has no current maintainer.)
Please inform wnpp@debian.org via e-mail:
o when you find that you need to orphan a package
o when you believe that the following list is incomplete
o when you would like to maintain one of these packages.
Patrick Edwards pje120@mail.usask.ca :
o cfs (non-us)
o saytime
o sigrot
o sniffit
Brian White bcwhite@pobox.com :
o cfengine
o zyxel
Joey Hess joey@kite.ml.org :
o Kmodplayer
Steve Dunham dunham@cps.msu.edu :
o xtar-dmotif
o xtar-smotif
Andreas Jellinghaus aj@dungeon.inka.de :
o kde
o giflib
Rob Browning rlb@cs.utexas.edu :
o blt
Helmut Geyer Helmut.Geyer@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de :
o ghostview
o xxgdb
Orn E. Hansen :
o xega
o xmailtool
Yves Arrouye Yves.Arrouye@marin.fdn.fr :
o compress-package
o ppd-adobe-common, ppd-adobe-extra, ppd-adobe-misc, ppd-gs
o psptools
Dominik Kubla dominik@debian.org :
o csh
Raul D. Miller moth@debian.org :
o j1 (in old source format)
o sam
Jim Robinson jimr@simons-rock.edu :
o mh-papers
o term
Doug Geiger runexe@ntplx.net :
o apsfilter
Erick Branderhorst branderh@debian.IAEhv.nl :
o mathpad
o wenglish
Christian Linhart chris@cosy.sbg.ac.at :
o xarchie
o bibindex
Stuart Lamble lamble@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au :
o fsp
Guy R. Thomas gthomas@native-ed.bc.ca :
o dld (do we still need this ?)
Patrick J Edwards edwards@cambridgnet.sk.ca :
o mailpgp
Robert Leslie rob@mars.org :
o motifnls
David Engel david@ods.com :
o tcl74
o tcl75
o tk40
o tk41
Philippe Troin phil@fifi.org :
o tclx74
o tclx75
o tix40
Michael Fletcher zidj@geocities.com :
o javalex
o java-cup
o rsynth
Karl Sackett krs@cortex.caos.aamu.edu :
o courtney
o groupkit
o imgstar
o lee
o objpak
o pgapack
o premail
o saoimage
o snns
o tcs
o wily
o xbattle
o xephem-smotif
Christian Schwarz schwarz@monet.m.isar.de :
o hyperlatex
o latex2rtf
Herbert Xu herbert@debian.org :
o gettyps
Others:
o rc
o xcompat (should we drop it ?)
o libc4 (a.out compatibility)
4. Packages needing a new maintainer
Please inform wnpp@debian.org via e-mail:
o when you find that you'd like to discontinue maintaining a package
Please inform wnpp@debian.org and the mainatiner of the package:
o when you would like to maintain one of the packages.
J.H.M. Dassen (Ray) jdassen@wi.LeidenUniv.nl :
o lesstif.
Maintaining the package itself is not difficult - the packaging is
reasonably straight-forward. The difficulty with this package lies
in the fact that LessTif still suffers from many bugs (e.g. a
memory leak showing up with xmcd, locking up X with nedit and DDD)
and some missing features. The ideal maintainer would be somebody
who is familiar with debugging X stuff, and who is prepared to work
closely with the upstream developers.
Rob Browning rlb@cs.utexas.edu :
o libident
o scm
o slib
Vincent Renardias vincent@waw.com :
o scilab
Sven Rudolph sr1@inf.tu-dresden.de :
o seyon
o lpr
Martin Schulze joey@infodrom.north.de :
o staroffice3
Christoph Lameter clameter@waterf.org :
o dhcp
o dhcp-beta
o dhcp-client-beta
o dhcp-relay-beta
o frad
o pptp-linux
o mtr
o wanpipe (Tools for kernel WAN functionality)
o zed (editor)
o adpkg
o berolist
o bonnie
o debsums
o defrag
o floppybackup
o fvwm95
o gpc
o gpc-doc
o isite
o jail
o jered
o le
o libgpc2
o mserver
o nat
o ncsa
o omirr
o optimizer
o pash
o poppassd
o sftp
o sharefont
o smb-nat
o transproxy
o xfstt
o xskat
o zmailer
Karl Ferguson karl@tower.net.au :
Christian Schwarz schwarz@monet.m.isar.de :
o lurkftp
Vincent Renardias vincent@waw.com :
o lde
o xabacus
o xmcpustate
o xodo
Michael Meskes meskes@topsystem.de :
o html2latex
o icmake
o ntfs
o umsdos
o xftp
Joost Witteveen joost@rulcmc.leidenuniv.nl :
o axe
o pixmap
o pstoedit
o wm2
Scott K. Ellis storm@gate.net :
o hypermail
5. 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.
Ed Petron epetron@leba.net :
o Purdue Compiler Construction Tool Set (PCCTS)
Leland Olds olds@eskimo.com :
o YADE (Yet Another Diagram Editor)
Jim Pick jim@jimpick.com :
o mico ORB <http://diamant-atm.vsb.cs.uni-frankfurt.de/~mico/>
Luis Francisco Gonzalez luisgh@cogs.susx.ac.uk :
o ElectricEyes <http://www.labs.redhat.com/ee.shtml>
Anselm Lingnau lingnau@tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de :
o tclhttpd (a TCL-based WWW server)
Shaleh shaleh@livenet.net :
o Enlightenment <http://www.enlightenment.org/>
Erik Andersen andersee@debian.org :
o Willows TWIN <http://www.willows.com/>
Jean Pierre LeJacq jplejacq@quoininc.com :
o printop (lprng GUI)
Alexander Lazarevic lazarevi@prinz-atm.cs.Uni-Magdeburg.DE :
o squeak (implementation of Smalltalk)
Stuart Lamble lamble@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au :
o Modula-3
<http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/modula-3/html/home.html>
Igor Grobman igor@digicron.com :
o (x)battleball (3D soccer game)
Brian Bassett brian@butterfly.ml.org :
o Caldera COAS
Joel Klecker jk@espy.org :
o zile (an emacs-like editor)
Yann Dirson ydirson@a2points.com :
o tkman
Darren torin@daft.com :
o giftool
Brian Sulcer bsulcer@gibson.com :
o vile (vi-like editor)
o rogue
o umoria
Martin Schulze joey@infodrom.north.de :
o vtwm: Virtual Window Manager for X11
o yodl
o w3-msql (W3 frontend for mSQL)
Christian Lynbech lynbech@daimi.aau.dk :
o ilisp (emacs interface to a number of lisp systems)
o hyperbole (emacs hypertext/info management system)
o oobr (emacs package for browsing OO programs)
o STk (Scheme Tk, a scheme interpreter with Tk support)
Dermot Bradley bradley@debian.org :
o Umich LDAP
o Nocol (network admin/monitoring)
Vincent Renardias vincent@odin.waw.com :
o FWF (Free Widget Foundation) - A pretty good set of graphic widgets
o Aero (A Physically Based Simulation and Animation System -
<http://www.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/ipvr/bv/aero/> )
Klee Dienes klee@sedona.com :
o NIST's POSIX validation suite
Yoshiaki Yanagihara yosiaki@bsd2.kbnes.nec.co.jp :
o japanese packages (mule, canna, Japanese Extended less)
Boris D. Beletsky borik@isracom.co.il :
o MIT scheme
o Scheme->C
o Freedom Desktop <ftp://fsw.com/pub/fdlite/FDlite1.32.tar.gz>
Christian Leutloff leutloff@debian.org :
o newtonlink
o jadetex
o dtdparse
o biss-awt
Todd Graham Lewis tlewis@mindspring.com :
o Kerberos ver. V (crypto) (non-US maintainer still needed)
o socks
Kai Henningsen kai@khms.westfalen.de :
o sather
Loic Prylli lprylli@graville.fdn.fr :
o jove
John Goerzen jgoerzen@complete.org :
o WorldVU-Atlantis BBS package
o midiplay (MIDI player)
Tristan McCann trismcc@nh.ultranet.com :
o Linux phone
Martin Alonso Soto Jacome masoto@uniandes.edu.co :
o jazz midi sequencer <http://rokke.grm.hia.no/per/jazz.html>
Christian Meder christian.meder@utoronto.ca :
o MuPAD
Andy Mortimer andy.mortimer@poboxes.com :
o TinyMUSH
Yann Dirson dirson@univ-mlv.fr :
o Using SGML - basic concepts (documentation)
o Understanding and writing SGML DTDs (documentation)
Hamish Moffatt hamish@debian.org :
o mars_nwe <ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/ncpfs> (Netware server )
Marco Budde Marco.Budde@hqsys.antar.com :
o HTML version of Matt Welsh's "Installation & Getting Started"
Charles Briscoe-Smith cpb4@ukc.ac.uk :
o UPS - the X-based debugger. (There are Linux-specific patches
around.)
o GSpreview
Peter Tonoli anarchie@brimstone.suburbia.net :
o terroid
Joost Kooij joost@kooij.com :
o xbat
Will Lowe harpo@udel.edu :
o clisp
Stephan Suerken suerken@fh-worms.de :
o uae
o gom
o xpcd
Brian S. Julin bri@mojo.calyx.net :
o hypernews
Robert Resendes resendes@ici.net :
o omniORB <http://www.orl.co.uk/omniORB/omniORB.html>
Ole Jrgen Tetlie olet@ifi.uio.no :
o battalion
Jean Pierre LeJacq jplejacq@quoininc.com :
o crack
o cracklib
Federico Di Gregorio fog@perosa.alpcom.it :
o reiserfs
James R. Van Zandt jrv@vanzandt.mv.com :
o emacsspeak-bs
o emacsspeak-ap
o emacsspeak-ac
o emacsspeak-xx
David Damerell damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk :
o mangband
Gregor Hoffleit flight@thefly.mathi.uni-heidelberg.de :
o gstep-make
o gstep-gui
o gstep-xdps
o gstep-db
o dgs
o cakit
o ockit
o objc
Brian Bassett brian@butterfly.ml.org :
o cgic - CGI C library from boutell.com.
o srgp - Simple Raster Graphics Package
Leonardo Boselli leo@dicea.unifi.it :
o listguard - mailing list manager
Gergely Madarasz gorgo@caesar.elte.hu :
o hugs - haskell interpreter
Branden Robinson branden@apocalypse.sequitur.org :
o xtrs - TRS-80 emulator
Claus R. Wickinghoff chef@sundancer.oche.de :
o changesys - newsgroup ordering tool
6. 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, please send an e-mail to
wnpp@debian.org.
6.1. Programming and development:
o ECoLisp - a Common Lisp compiler that produces faster code but
isn't as widely used as GCL
o CLiCC - Common Lisp compiler that generates stand-alone apps
(rather large ones, though)
o CLX - Common Lisp Xlib implementation
o PCL - Portable Common Loops for GCL
o Cross-compilation environments for alpha, m68k, SPARC
o ACE <http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html> (a free C++
library)
o FPK pascal <http://sun01.brain.uni-freiburg.de/%7Eklaus/fpk-pas/>
o GNU Nana <http://wattle.cs.ntu.edu.au/homepages/pjm/nana-home/>:
improved support for assertions and logging in C and C++.
o qddb <ftp://ftp.hsdi.com/pub/qddb/sources/>, a relational database.
6.2. Graphics:
o Kubota Graphics Corporation's now-PD 3-D visualization system,
Dore'.
6.3. X11:
o The LGPL-ed GUI library fltk
<http://www.cinenet.net/users/spitzak/fltk/> which is supposed to
be compatible with (non-free) XForms toolkit. Use of XForms is the
sole reason that several useful packages like lyx are in contrib
rather than main.
o Andrew
o mergemem <http://www.mondoshawan.ml.org/mergemem/>
o grok (database with many functions)
o xidle
6.4. Networking/Communication
o Roxen <http://www.roxen.com/> (WWW server)
o ftptool
o Speakerphone/Answering Machine for USR and Rockwell Modems
<http://www.mindspring.com/~bnaylor/spk/>
o SSL FTP and FTPD <ftp://ftp.psy.uq.oz.au/pub/Crypto/SSLapps/>. If
possible, the SSL functionality for the daemon should be ported to
the one in netstd, as that may contain security fixes not in SSL
ftpd.
o multicast (MBONE)
6.5. Text utilities
o HTML editors (tkHTML, auc-html.el)
o Virtual Paper
<http://www.research.digital.com:80/SRC/virtualpaper/>
6.6. Misc
o sfio <http://www.oasis.leo.org/perl/src/independent/sfio.dsc.html>
(C library stdio replacement)
o Artificial Life Programs ( http://alife.santafe.edu )
o Acmaint <ftp://ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/ACMAINT/> (User
administration tool)
o hpack
<http://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/public/computing/archiving/compress/hpack/>
(non-us archiver)
o rar <http://www.zetnet.co.uk/RAR.T-Mail/> (shareware archiver)
7. Programs that someone should write
This section contains suggestions/wishes for programs. There is no
known implementation of such a program for Linux.
o 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.
8. Historic Changes
8.1. Since version 1.68 1998/01/26
o Christophe Le Bars <mailto:clebars@debian.org> has adopted hylafax.
o Aaron Howell <mailto:aaron@sunrise.bayside.net.au> has adopted
tama.
o hpack
<http://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/public/computing/archiving/compress/hpack/>
and rar <http://www.zetnet.co.uk/RAR.T-Mail/> archivers added to
packages which need debianization.
o Federico Di Gregorio <mailto:fog@perosa.alpcom.it> has adopted
freefont.
o Anselm Lingnau <mailto:lingnau@tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de> is
working on tclhttpd (a TCL-based WWW server).
o Luis Francisco Gonzalez <mailto:luisgh@cogs.susx.ac.uk> is working
on gdl_imlib and ElectricEyes
<http://www.labs.redhat.com/ee.shtml>.
o Lesstif added to packages needing a new maintainer.
o More Christoph Lamter <mailto:clameter@fuller.edu> packages are
available for adoption: zed, wanpipe, frad, dhcp-client-beta, dhcp-
relay-beta, pptp-linux, and mtr.
8.2. Since version 1.67 1998/01/19
o The cfengine, saytime, sigrot, sniffit, and cfs packages are now
orphaned.
o The Enlightenment <http://www.enlightenment.org/> window manager is
being worked on by Shaleh <mailto:shaleh@livenet.net>.
o The libident, scm, and slib packages need a new maintainer; contact
Rob Browning <mailto:rlb@cs.utexas.edu>.
o Erik Andersen <mailto:andersee@debian.org> is now working on
Willows TWIN <http://www.willows.com>, the multi-platform windows
emulator.
o Added mention that fltk
<http://www.cinenet.net/users/spitzak/fltk/> needs to be packaged,
to replace the non-free XForms library. And mergemem
<http://www.mondoshawan.ml.org/mergemem/>, which reduces
application memory usage.
o The C libraries have been adopted by Dale Scheetz
<mailto:dwarf@polaris.net>.
o Jean Pierre LeJacq <mailto:jplejacq@quoininc.com> is working on
printop, a tcl/tk GUI for lprng.
o Adam Klein <mailto:aklein@eskimo.com> has adopted ncompress.
o Alexander Lazarevic <mailto:lazarevi@prinz-atm.cs.Uni-Magdeburg.DE>
is working on squeak, an implementation of Smalltalk.
o The hsc package has been uploaded.
8.3. Since version 1.66 1998/01/12
o New maintainer Randall Loomis <mailto:rsl@zanshinsys.com> has
adopted bridge and bridgex.
o Eric Prestemon <mailto:ecp@io.com> has adopted freelip.
o A.F.R. Bain <mailto:afrb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk> has adopted ftnchek and
ratfor77.
o GNU R is uploaded.
o The xtar suite and Kmodplayer are now orphaned.
o Anders Hammarquist <mailto:iko@netg.se> has adopted knfs.
o The dhcp, dhcp-beta, tama (Net Tamagotchi server), wanpipe (kernel
WAN tools) and zed (editor) packages are now available for adoption
from Christoph Lameter <mailto:clameter@waterf.org>.
8.4. Since version 1.65 1998/01/05
o Martin Schulze <mailto:joey@infodrom.north.de> is giving away the
staroffice3 installer, and Vincent Renardias
<mailto:vincent@waw.com> is offering scilab.
o The autofs, sidplay, dialdcost, xmbdfed, gnome, siag, synaethesia,
abc2ps, and abcmidi packages have been uploaded.
o Davide G. M. Salvetti <mailto:salve@debian.org> has adopted lacheck
and auctex.
o Joel Klecker <mailto:jk@espy.org> has adopted vgrind.
o The xproc package is no longer orphaned, as it is included in
procps.
8.5. Since version 1.64 1997/12/29
o Craig Small <mailto:csmall@debian.org> has adopted procps.
o Richard Braakman <mailto:dark@xs4all.nl> has adopted ftplib.
o Kai Henningsen <mailto:kaih@khms.westfalen.de> has adopted adbbs.
o Gergely Madarasz <mailto:gorgo@caesar.elte.hu> has adopted htdig.
o Douglas Bates <mailto:bates@stat.wisc.edu> has adopted xspread.
o Adrian Bridgett <mailto:adrian.bridgett@poboxes.com> has adopted
tkdiff and uploaded pppload.
o Stuart Lamble <mailto:lamble@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> is working on
modula-3.
o Karl M. Hegbloom <mailto:karlheg@bittersweet.inetarena.com> has
adopted suidmanager.
o The pgcc compiler is obsolete and no longer listed as orphaned.
8.6. Since version 1.63 1997/12/22
o Frederic Lepied <mailto:Frederic.Lepied@sugix.frmug.org> is working
on xmbdfed, a powerful X11 font editor.
o Boris D. Beletsky <mailto:borik@isracom.net.il> is working on a
Scheme->C translator.
o Glimpse has been adopted by Marco Budde
<mailto:Marco.Budde@hqsys.antar.com>.
o Herbert Xu <mailto:herbert@gondor.apana.org.au> has taken over
netpbm and chimera.
o Andreas Franzen <mailto:Andreas.Franzen@nordkom.netsurf.de> has
adopted xarclock.
o New maintainer Adam P. Harris <mailto:apharris@onshore.com> is
adopting addressbook.
o Igor Grobman <mailto:igor@digicron.com> is working on xbattleball.
8.7. Since version 1.62 1997/12/15
o Elie Rosenblum <mailto:erosenbl@nyx.net> has adopted the arpd
package.
o The lxtools packge is now being maintained by Mark Eichin
<mailto:eichin@kitten.gen.ma.us>.
o Joel Klecker <mailto:jk@espy.org> is now maintaining 9fonts, 9menu,
9term, 9wm, and mimedecode.
o Juergen Menden <mailto:menden@morgana.camelot.de> has adopted
dialdcost.
o Martin Mitchell <mailto:martin@debian.org> has adopted flin, and is
working on synaethesia (a cd player with graphical effects).
o Steve Kostecke <mailto:steve@kostecke.net> has adopted linuxlogo.
o The Linux Explorer, DQS, and PVM are now uploaded.
o Orphaned majordomo, ratfor77 and ftnchek.
o Steve McIntyre <mailto:stevem@chiark.greenend.org.uk> has adopted
unarj, lha, nas, giftrans, and xpostitplus.
o Request for "debian administration tool" dropped, since as Brian
Bassett <mailto:brian@butterfly.ml.org> is now packaging COAS.
8.8. Since version 1.61 1997/12/08
o The postgresql and typist packages are now uploaded.
o The witalian package is now being maintained by Davide G. M.
Salvetti <mailto:salve@debian.org>.
o Orphaned glimpse.
o Ole J. Tetlie <mailto:olet@ifi.uio.no> has adopted pari and
paridoc.
o Debmake is now maintained by Santiago Vila Doncel
<mailto:sanvila@unex.es>.
o The verse, bible-kjv, and worklog packages are now maintained by
Oliver Elphick <mailto:Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk>.
o Paul Slootman <mailto:paul@debian.org> is now maintaining
isdnutils.
o Removed strn from "not available" section.
o The giflib and kde packages are now orphaned.
o Joel Klecker <mailto:jk@espy.org> is now maintaining macutils,
mcvert, and opie, and is working on zile (an emacs-like editor).
o Juergen Menden <mailto:menden@morgana.camelot.de> is now working on
the orphaned package dialdcost.
o Yann Dirson <mailto:ydirson@a2points.com> is working on the
previously orphaned package tkman.
o Removed agrep from text utilities needing packaging, as it is
contained within glimpse.
o Jim Mintha <mailto:jim@geog.ubc.ca> is working on taking over the
packages lsof and automount.
o Dropped the orphaned package bzip completely.
o Igor Grobman <mailto:igor@digicron.com> is packaging battleball, a
3D soccer game played with tanks.
o Orphaned arpd and vgrind, as Dominik Kubla has left the Project.
o Douglas Bates <mailto:bates@stat.wisc.edu> is working on GNU R,
which is not unlike S, a language and system for statistical data
analysis and graphics developed at Bell Labs.
o Removed perl documentaion from works in progress, as the provided
manpages are sufficient.
o Roberto Lumbreras <mailto:rover@lander.es> has adopted the radiusd-
merit package.
--
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-user-request@lists.debian.org .
Trouble? e-mail to templin@bucknell.edu .
Reply to: