Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-testing (39 mails)

[Tilman Schmidt <tilman@xxxxxxx>]

Am 12.04.2009 15:05 schrieb Patrick Shanahan:
> * Tilman Schmidt <tilman@xxxxxxx> [04-12-09 06:50]:
> > Ok, that splits my question in three:
> >
> > a) How do I get my patch included if he is still maintaining it?
>
> Send it to the packager.

When I started trying to help improving (Open)SUSE, the advice I got
was that the best way to submit a patch was to open a Bugzilla entry
describing the problem the patch was going to solve, and attach the
proposed patch to it. Is that no longer true, and is it now acceptable
to send personal mail to the packager of the package the file to be
patched happens to be distributed in?

Also, won't the packager ask for approval from the maintainer(s) of
the affected subsystem(s)?

> > b) How do I get my patch included if he isn't maintaining it anymore?
>
> Build the package yourself, or beg that someone else will pick it up.

ts@xenon:~> rpm -qf /usr/share/hwinfo/ISDN.CDB.*
hwinfo-13.57-2
hwinfo-13.57-2

How can I build the standard openSUSE package hwinfo myself and get my
version included instead of the current one?

> > c) How do I find out which of the two is the case?
>
> I have found that *usually* the last entry in the "changelog" will
> provide the name/email addr of the packager.

ts@xenon:~> rpm -q --changelog hwinfo | head
* Di Sep 25 2007 - snwint@xxxxxxx
- braille: fix el2d detection; wait longer in ht code
- fix mv643xx detection (#300613)

* Mo Sep 24 2007 - snwint@xxxxxxx
- updated X11 data (#326503)

* Mo Sep 24 2007 - snwint@xxxxxxx
- updated X11 data (#327568)

Doesn't look very promising. Name there ain't, and the E-mail address
seems to bounce.

> > Which are, of course, instances of general questions about the way
> > openSUSE want's to handle external contributions:
> >
> > a) What happens to contributions if a maintainer is so overburdened he
> > or she doesn't even have the capacity to approve contributions that are
> > otherwise ready for inclusion?
>
> Request/assume those duties,

How?

> fork,

How?

> or do without.

Ok, I guess that's the only option. Meaning, in this case: do not try
to help openSUSE getting that problem fixed anymore.

> > b) What happens to contributions if a maintainer leaves?
>
> Someone else picks it up or it dies.

Ok. So ISDN in openSUSE dies. SuSE was once the distribution of choice
for ISDN users. I guess that time is over.

> > c) How can contributors find their responsible maintainer (or absence
> > of same)?
>
> rpm -qi <package-name>
> or read the latest entry in the changelog

See above. Also note that packager != maintainer.

-- 
Tilman Schmidt                    E-Mail: tilman@xxxxxxx
Bonn, Germany
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