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Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:31:25 +0200 Subject: Re: [aur-general] TU application for Thomas Dziedzic From: Xyne <xyne@archlinux.ca> To: aur-general@archlinux.org
Stefan Husmann wrote:
well, sage-mathematics is not a package, it is a distribution (btw, do you know scilab?). Some years ago I asked on this list if it should go to community, and the short discussion ended in the conclusion, that it should not. But I am fine with disussing it again.
I installed Sage once from the AUR back when it was compiled in the install script (which is also what led to my 32 MB Pacman log). This seemed very hackish to me and I would expect that was a factor in its exclusion from [community]. Looking at the current PKGBUILD, it seems that upstream has finally cleaned up their build scripts to the point that Sage can be packaged properly.
Considering this along with the relative popularity of Sage (both the AUR package and the application in general), it would probably be worth reconsidering its inclusion in [community].
Incidentally, I remember that when I compiled it the package duplicated several other packages, e.g. maxima, because it includes other applications internally. Is there any way (yet) to make it use other packages instead? If not, does it fully provide any other packages?
As for Thomas' application, I have no objections or concerns at the moment. I've noticed him on the forum and I also use some of his packages in the AUR (although I hadn't realized that the accounts belonged to the same person). His packaging skills seem good to me and he's responsive to user feedback. Coupled with the general attitude that I've seen in his posts I think he would make a great addition to the team.
As for the questions raised by others of what he specifically hopes to do as a TU, I think a focus on scientific apps is a good cause. Science apps form an important niche and having TUs who can properly maintain science packages will benefit all users with an interest in science.*
/Xyne
* The idea of an "arch-science" team comes to mind, similar to the "arch-haskell" team, which has done great work in making Arch useful for Haskell users, but I don't actually have any concrete ideas of what that would entail.
Hello, I am the former maintainer of the sage-mathematics package in AUR. At the time I asked for inclusion in community it was not packaged in the install file, but using a "regular" PKGBUILD. This method stopped working later. The main reason for not including it was the mentioned duplication of packages. I believe this issue would be difficult to solve. The packages sage uses are mostly altered in a way to make them integrate into the "distribution". I do not know if there is a complete list of changes they made, even a complete list of packages they changed. I was sometimes thinkig about a arch-sage-distribution, that consists of the arch core packages, sage as base system, and that takes care of not installing packages that are included in sage from the arch repos. I am not sure if this is technically doable or advisable. One would have two package managers, pacman and spkg. Regards Stefan