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  • Unresponding maintainer on out-of-date package

    From emneo@21:1/5 to All on Mon Oct 7 10:50:09 2024
    Hello,

    I have been trying to get in contact with the maintainer of a package,
    but they have not answered at all since my last mail a month ago. What
    should I do about that?

    I can provide patches for a specific package if needed but I am not
    aware to whom I should contact regarding that matter except the maintainer.

    Kind regards, emneo

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  • From Andy Smith@21:1/5 to emneo on Mon Oct 7 12:00:01 2024
    Hi,


    On Mon, Oct 07, 2024 at 10:24:54AM +0200, emneo wrote:
    I have been trying to get in contact with the maintainer of a package, but they have not answered at all since my last mail a month ago. What should I do about that?

    I'd probably wait another month and then contact the MIA team pointing
    them to the bug(s) I filed in the Debian bug tracking system
    (bugs.debian.org) that have gone unanswered for those two months.

    https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/MIA

    However, just to set your expectations, unless the updates needed are highly important (not just new features) the best you could hope for would be a
    very long process to get the package declared orphaned. Then you'd be
    hoping that some other Debian developer would take it on and be more
    open to applying your patches.


    Thanks,
    Andy

    --
    https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

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  • From tomas@tuxteam.de@21:1/5 to emneo on Mon Oct 7 14:50:01 2024
    On Mon, Oct 07, 2024 at 02:17:15PM +0200, emneo wrote:
    Hello,

    Thank you for the answer, it is definitely not a highly important update (Just a bump with some bug fixes, with some being crashes that are quite annoying to work around) but it can be dealt without.

    I'll be waiting for another month or so and then contact the MIA team like you just wrote.

    Unless it is a group maintained package (where maintainers have agreed they
    can do non-maintainer upgrades for each other without much fuss), i.e. some
    of those [1].

    Cheers

    [1] https://wiki.debian.org/LowThresholdNmu
    --
    tomás

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  • From emneo@21:1/5 to All on Mon Oct 7 14:40:01 2024
    Hello,

    Thank you for the answer, it is definitely not a highly important update
    (Just a bump with some bug fixes, with some being crashes that are quite annoying to work around) but it can be dealt without.

    I'll be waiting for another month or so and then contact the MIA team
    like you just wrote.

    Kind regards, emneo

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  • From tomas@tuxteam.de@21:1/5 to emneo on Mon Oct 7 15:00:02 2024
    On Mon, Oct 07, 2024 at 02:48:51PM +0200, emneo wrote:
    That is a single maintainer package, and they are not in the list that you just provided.

    I see. Anyway, thanks for making Debian better :)

    Cheers
    --
    t

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  • From emneo@21:1/5 to tomas@tuxteam.de on Mon Oct 7 15:10:01 2024
    That is a single maintainer package, and they are not in the list that
    you just provided.

    So I would guess that this is fine.

    On 07/10/2024 14:44, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
    On Mon, Oct 07, 2024 at 02:17:15PM +0200, emneo wrote:
    Hello,

    Thank you for the answer, it is definitely not a highly important update
    (Just a bump with some bug fixes, with some being crashes that are quite
    annoying to work around) but it can be dealt without.

    I'll be waiting for another month or so and then contact the MIA team like >> you just wrote.
    Unless it is a group maintained package (where maintainers have agreed they can do non-maintainer upgrades for each other without much fuss), i.e. some of those [1].

    Cheers

    [1] https://wiki.debian.org/LowThresholdNmu

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  • From tomas@tuxteam.de@21:1/5 to emneo on Mon Oct 7 15:30:02 2024
    On Mon, Oct 07, 2024 at 02:55:24PM +0200, emneo wrote:
    While I am thinking about it, is there some documentation to try and help on Debian (packaging or anything else).

    I definitely have some time to spare and would be glad to help where I can
    :)

    Hm. I'm not the right person to explain, since I'm not really a
    project member, but the Debian pages have a good bunch of starting
    points. Here are a few:

    https://www.debian.org/intro/help
    https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/contributing.en.html
    https://wiki.debian.org/Welcome/Contributors
    https://www.debian.org/devel/join/

    Cheers
    --
    t

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  • From emneo@21:1/5 to tomas@tuxteam.de on Mon Oct 7 15:20:01 2024
    While I am thinking about it, is there some documentation to try and
    help on Debian (packaging or anything else).

    I definitely have some time to spare and would be glad to help where I
    can :)

    On 07/10/2024 14:49, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
    On Mon, Oct 07, 2024 at 02:48:51PM +0200, emneo wrote:
    That is a single maintainer package, and they are not in the list that you >> just provided.
    I see. Anyway, thanks for making Debian better :)

    Cheers

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  • From Alexandre Rossi@21:1/5 to All on Mon Oct 7 22:40:01 2024
    Hi,

    I have been trying to get in contact with the maintainer of a package, but they have not answered at all since my last mail a month ago. What should I do about that?

    I'd probably wait another month and then contact the MIA team pointing
    them to the bug(s) I filed in the Debian bug tracking system (bugs.debian.org) that have gone unanswered for those two months.

    https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/MIA

    However, just to set your expectations, unless the updates needed are highly important (not just new features) the best you could hope for would be a
    very long process to get the package declared orphaned. Then you'd be
    hoping that some other Debian developer would take it on and be more
    open to applying your patches.

    The ultimate goal being to get things for Debian users, what I usually try
    in such cases (leaving some time between steps):

    1) Report a bug describing the problem
    2) Provide a patch that fixes that bug (and use the fixed package
    in a private build) in the bug report or as a salsa MR
    3) Offer to prepare an upload ready to sponsor with the fix
    included, in the bug report.
    4) Prepare an upload and ask for sponsorship on mentors.d.o

    If this a of interest for another Debian Developper, this usually gets sponsored.

    Thanks,

    Alex

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