Re: Draft: Hints for contributing to Debian GNU/Linux
Draft notes:
* Comments that shouldn't appear in the final document are marked in
the following way: ( comment -sr1)
These comments usually highlight open questions. In this case I am
interested in answers. (see next sentence)
* Please send comments about the contents of this document via private
e-mail to me (Sven Rudolph <[email protected]>).
* English isn't my native language, so I am interested in suggestions
regarding my style of writing. Please send these via private e-mail.
* I intend to send the final document to debian-user regularly (e.g. weekly).
It should be available at ftp.debian.org.
I received feedback from :
* Dirk.Eddelbuettel <[email protected]>
* Erick Branderhorst <[email protected]>
* J.H.M.Dassen <[email protected]> .
$Id: contributing,v 1.2 1995/10/30 22:33:12 sr1 Exp sr1 $
------------------------
Hints for contributing to Debian GNU/Linux
0. Contents
(not yet done -sr1)
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/ .
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 ?
(Pointer to the documents in debian/project/standards -sr1)
1.4. Feedback
Please send additions, corrections and suggestions to Sven Rudolph
<[email protected]>.
2. Package 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 made by volunteers who are
not paid for maintaining Debian packages.)
If you want to give up maintaining a package, send an e-mail to Sven
Rudolph <[email protected]>.
If you believe that a certain package that isn't listed here doesn't
have a current maintainer anymore, send e-mail to Sven Rudolph
<[email protected]>.
If you intend to maintain one of the packages listed here, write ( who
should do this (or wants to do this) ? -sr1).
* ghostscript, gsfonts (previously maintained by Ted Hajek
<[email protected]>, he got an increased non-Debian workload)
* elm \
* ircii \ (Carl Streeter <[email protected]> maintained
* wenglish > these packages. Where is he ? -sr1)
* unzip, zip /
* perl /
(J.H.M.Dassen <[email protected]> created a newer perl package, but
it is declared experimental because he doesn't have the time to maintain
it.)
* strace (is this correct ? or is there already someone interested in it ? -sr1)
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 get rid of,
send an e-mail to Sven Rudolph <[email protected]> , then he will
add this package to this section.
If you intend to maintain one of the packages listed here, write the
current maintainer of this package.
* seyon \ (currently maintained by
* mailx / Sven Rudolph <[email protected]> )
4. Not-yet existing packages
Programs listed in this section aren't yet available as Debian
packages, but someone wished them.
If you want to create a Debian package, send an e-mail to Alvar Bray
<[email protected]> .
I
4.1. 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 (electric-fence is already available. Is checker better, worse
or different ? -sr1)
* 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
* GCL - Common Lisp compiler (nee AKCL) and...
* 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)
4.2. Mail software:
* BBDB (for Emacs: Big Brother Data Base, a rolodex with hooks into
VM, GNUS, and RMAIL)
4.3. USENET news software:
* nn.
* C News (as an alternative to INN) including NOV and NNTP.
* strn.
4.4. Maths packages:
* Octave (the FSF's Matlab clone).
* 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
4.5. CAD:
* 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'.
4.6. Misc Tools:
* GNU recode
* quota
4.7. Editors:
* Lucid Emacs
* MULE: MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs (adds support for many
character sets--Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, and many
more) (A maintainer who uses these enhancements would be welcome.)
4.8. Games:
* nethack
4.9. 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)
* Mosaic (This would belong into the non-free section.)
4.10. Communication
* BBS (Bulletin Board System) Software
5. Not-yet written programs
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.
6. Beyond packages
(Shall I drop this section ? -sr1)
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
* GNU Debian/Linux for other platforms (m68k, alpha)
* ( several other things that I don't remember just now ... -sr1)
--
Sven Rudolph ([email protected]); WWW : http://www.sax.de/~sr1/
Reply to: