[Vm-dev] Linux package maintainers need help (was Re: Can you launch a squeak image on an etoys vm in Ubuntu?)

[David T. Lewis]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 03:19:45PM +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> 
> (Sorry, this is going to be a longer post, covering a lot of basics,  
> but I feel even most Linux Squeakers are unaware of how open-source  
> software actually gets to users in Linux)

Bert,

Excellent description, thanks for this.

> Maybe having a mailing list specifically for maintainers would be  
> useful? But even just tracking down what packages are already out  
> there, who is maintaining them etc. would be very valuable. And  
> monitoring the bug trackers, participating on the distro-maintainers  
> lists etc. Here is just a short list for squeak packages in various  
> distros:
> 
> Debian:
> http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=squeak-vm
> Fedora:
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/name/squeak-vm
> Ubuntu:
> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/squeak-vm
> OpenSuSE:
> http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/smalltalk/openSUSE_11.0/repodata/repoview/Squeak-0-3.9.8-288.1.html
> Gentoo:
> http://gentoo-portage.com/dev-lang/squeak
> Arch:
> http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=13021

A mailing list sounds like a good idea. I would certainly want to
monitor that list to understand priorities for things that might
need to happen on the VM team, for example if there are are tasks
with timing constraints driven by the various distro release
schedules, or if certain bug fixes or enhancements should be
given some extra priority.

Of course I don't mean to suggest that the Linux distros should
receive any particular priority over say the iPhone platform, or
RiscOS, or whatever; just that right now I'm quite clueless as
to what those distros need or what the deadlines are, so I think
that your mailing list suggestion could help give us all some
visibility to those requirements.

Dave