Bug#381028: How to help maintaining Galeon

[Loïc Minier <lool@dooz.org>]

        Hi James,

On Fri, Sep 22, 2006, James Richardson wrote:
> I use galeon and would not mind helping out where I can. I am not a DD, but
> I am a programmer, just give me a few hints as the best way to proceed.

 I'm sorry I only notice your message now: this is because you sent it
 to the bug address, but the submitter of a bug doesn't receive this
 traffic, only the "maintainer" does, and in the case of "RFA" bugs
 there is no maintainer to receive these.

 Anyway, thanks for your offer.  Here's a short summary that I should
 have sent when I proposed the package for adoption:
   Galeon is being phased out upstream; the short story is that the
   Epiphany web browser started as a fork of Galeon and gained plugins
   support, and this lead to a lot of duplication of code and
   maintenance; the long term goal is that Epiphany's plugins should
   offer the same functionalities as Galeon did.  The long story is
   here:
   http://galeon.sourceforge.net/Main/GaleonFuture

 The bulk of the Galeon maintenance has always been done upstream, and
 I think most of the work was a result of API breakage between Mozilla
 releases.

 The Debian maintenance consisted of discussing with Debian bug
 submitters via the Debian BTS, forwarding confirmed bugs upstreams,
 pulling patches, and doing the usual distribution-wide maintenance
 (registering alternatives, updating build-deps, deps etc.).


 Upstream was very convenient to work with, but things have been getting
 slower lately and I've not been paying due attention to the package.

 If you're not a Debian Developper, I can still sponsor your uploads.
 You would need to understand how Debian packaging works, mostly by
 reading documentation from:
    <http://www.debian.org/devel/>
 You will also need to know a little about Subversion as the Galeon
 package is hosted in a SVN repository on Alioth, as explained in this
 bug report.

 If you are still interested, I suggest you start by looking at the open
 Debian bugs, perhaps trying to reproduce them, search for corresponding
 upstream bugs, or file new ones.  I will grant you SVN access to work
 on the packaging or if you need to add patches, and you should ping me
 to review your work and upload it.

   Bye,
-- 
Loïc Minier <lool@dooz.org>
 "Forget your stupid theme park! I'm gonna make my own! With hookers!
  And blackjack! In fact, forget the theme park!"          -- Bender