Copy:
[email protected]
On Monday, June 16, 2025 11:56:19 PM Mountain Standard Time
[email protected]
wrote:
Hello Andrey,
Am 16.06.2025 23:29 schrieb Andrey Rakhmatullin:
That's expected, so what did you want to know when you asked "how to proceed further"?
I just want to be sure that there is no other Debian-like process or
channel
where to put such requests in, e.g. a ticket against a pseudo-package or something like this. It is not easy for outsiders like me.
So it seems this list was the correct place and there is no other
channel.
And I can do nothing else than waiting.
Thank you for the answers.
Regards,
Christian
The thing you need to understand about Debian is that it has a strong package- ownership model. That means that very few things happen without the package maintainers being involved and other Debian Developers are reticent to step on the package maintainers’ toes.
Typically, for the software I package, I try to develop strong relationships with the upstream developers. If I were ever contacted by an upstream developer stating that an important fix should be shipped in the Debian on an expedited schedule, I would do everything possible to make it happen.
I do no know why you have not had this experience with the maintainers of your package this time. Perhaps they are very busy and haven’t seen your communications. Or perhaps they have lost interest in contributing to Debian.
Or perhaps they are ill. As far as I know, none of them have responded negatively to your suggestion of an update.
Debian has a couple of procedures for dealing with packages whose maintainers are absent or unresponsive. The least invasive is an NMU (Non-Maintainer Upload). The most invasive is package Salvaging (becoming the new maintainer). Both of these require extra steps and delayed time compared to the maintainer updating the package.
As stated earlier, Debian Developers tend to be fairly reticent to step on other developer’s toes. And, in addition, most are fairly busy and don’t have
a lot of bandwidth to take on any new tasks. The result of this is that often a package has to languish for several years before someone else picks it up.
As an upstream developer, you only have a few basic options when dealing with this unfavorable situation.
1. Do the Debian packaging yourself (that is what I personally do). As you already mentioned, Debian packaging is a surprisingly complicated task. It took me three months of reading documentation before I was ready to start working on my first package, and another three months after that before I could produce usable results (and years later I am still learning all types of new things about doing it well).
2. Wait for a response--which might or might not ever come--from those who have maintained the package in the past.
3. Wait for some other package maintainer to take over maintenance of the package.
None of these are ideal. The ideal would be that every package is maintained by an active and involved maintainer who responds in a timely manner to every bug report and every upstream release. The ideal is also that Debian has a surplus of developers that have enough time to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. I try to always be in the middle of mentoring one or two new developers to move us in that direction.
--
Soren Stoutner
[email protected]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEJKVN2yNUZnlcqOI+wufLJ66wtgMFAmhR26cACgkQwufLJ66w tgMd9Q/+PGNR2GyPDX6i+pPLhLojNfWeRXimIEKJsT3Rypo89u2mk0/vWcTLVMbr o97xM25qpjIhAGl1zkWwEvW15o7nYT4gxP8gIMd3KYMVpwHdlzqnqU8rTdaSgs4F UdvJIP/JG5LZVdhJWCmNYPSiVkImf2YQd8W3TfnhMsFZMpbHbctm8CF3rsb14T0a tiSYYXl0syW0Z9kTN3kJjwUmE8EEjB8u2xu+1cIDzymwyh6ZQ1QA3EwSnwhpQ0Jj +7ddJxUMgxi+Z5O1VNwedHVeGcNziq5rOVqVfMEy7PMHokUK2zThZukb1potmXRu 0XuJOEY+nLYZzGkC2HHN+d1nErGaZWmdPgkI0jKnD1dnLKt8DHJG6ky8JFxp4ABN vdETnk3fr79wyVQfxszTkKx8hy8efnlDxpfzTMThT2Wni6DiHf6BwYDGi7vqNV6+ VW1hcorylzxr8Y6AjO9xwKnfHGceceJTUa4NS5YL3zVZ6s/Eb0Zp4r+9XQfc8oUc IuJO2beNq5sUgGcyt5ua7oO/jo0TVyLtWRqv8Eg64Iwznvpl6BP6vBStCo+7kgk9 s7B9Wz2bo3bGdAX5+rwlpSgCyCkgRH5M/aL7jiUTD6aUpLy8HFtmfIRRCBP4DoM+ kndkxaDpEsSrhxiu4CWZ+3lQu3tKuGHi1UdCYZFPdmCGAvpD4Ks=
=d+8P
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)