Re: [Sks-devel] SKS debian package

[Mike Doty]

On 04/20/12 08:44, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
> Hi Sebastian (and other folks interested in sks in debian)--
> 
> On 04/20/2012 04:32 AM, Sebastian Urbach wrote:
>> Just for everyone who depends on a debian sks package. I complained to
>> the the debian project about Christoph Martin (Main Debian SKS
>> developer) and im also trying to get him removed from that position as
>> well.
> 
> It sounds to me like you're frustrated with the lag in sks packaging for
> debian.  That's understandable, i'm frustrated too!
> 
> It seems clear that the people currently listed as maintainers for sks
> in debian don't have time to focus on it right now, which is sad but
> understandable.  People have lives, and sometimes their commitments change.
> 
> Getting the debian maintainers "removed" won't resolve your frustration,
> though, because the new version of sks still won't be packaged for
> debian.  So it seems like the only effect your current approach will
> have is to make people more angry and frustrated, and maybe even remove
> sks from debian entirely if it has no maintainers at all.
> 
> If i knew ocaml better (hint: "at all" would be better than my current
> situation), and i was more comfortable with bdb, and i had more spare
> time (hint: "any" would be more than my current situation), i would
> consider taking the packaging over myself.  But those particular stars
> aren't aligned for me right now :(
> 
> It sounds to me like the current maintainers have been very honest with
> you about their inability to work on it, and would probably be very
> happy to see a proposal about a good way to move forward.  Maybe they'd
> be up for an offer of co-maintainership?
> 
> Perhaps you (Sebastian, or anyone else on this list) would like to take
> a stab at updating the current debian packaging to use upstream's 1.1.3,
> upload patches to the BTS, or even seek sponsorship for the new package?
>  You don't need to be a Debian Developer to maintain packages in debian.
>  We welcome everyone!
> 
> My friend Asheesh Laroia recommends this particular slide set by Lucas
> Nussbaum [0].  They're quite on-topic -- they show you how to take an
> existing Debian package and modify it.
> 
> If you need help with any of this, the debian-mentors list [1] has
> people like him on it that are good resources to ask questions, as does
> the #debian-mentors IRC channel on irc.oftc.net.
> 
> Hopefully we can find a way to resolve the frustration and get debian's
> packaging of SKS back on track!
> 
> Regards,
> 
>       --dkg
> 
> [0] http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/?p=683
> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/

As the Gentoo sks "maintainer", I look at this thread and laugh... I've
seen it so many times from users before.  What dkg has said in this
email is spot on.  The power of open source is that each and every
person has the power to build their systems as they please.  Anyone is
free to make a .deb for sks, and my experience with debian and derived
distros is that people are often searching outside of the distros
repository for .deb packages, so why not build a .deb yourself...

If you're running into issues compiling on modern linux, you should take
a look at the work I did for Gentoo [1] that fixed the bdb stubs.

[1] - http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/net-misc/sks/

--Mike on a laptop so no fancy sigs