[Pkg-scicomp-devel] joining debian-science and pkg-scicomp

[Andreas Tille]

On Tue, 8 Jul 2008, Ondrej Certik wrote:

> What is the purpose of Debian Science -- isn't it better to join the two teams?

Well, Debian Science is a little bit more than just packaging and the
scope is wider than just "computing".  If you look at the tasks page

    http://cdd.alioth.debian.org/science/tasks/

you get a good overview what we are doing.

> Here is a list of packages that we maintain in the Debian Scientific
> Computation Team:
>
> http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-scicomp-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
>
> Some notable ones are: paraview, abinit, gmsh, suitesparse (e.g.
> umfpack), superlu, netgen, libmesh, slepc, tetgen

It is great that there is a team that maintains these computing packages
and I would be really happy if anybody could work down this list of packages
and either add packages to existing tasks of Debian Science or perhaps
it turns out that it is reasonable to add another task with all these
packages.  Because it seems that it can not be mentioned often enough:

     svn://svn.debian.org/cdd/projects/science/trunk/debian-science/tasks

is the place where you can influenze the tasks pages mentioned above (as well
as the metapackages).  Just go on adding information to the tasks files.

> Here is a list of packages maintained by the Debian Science:
>
> http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=debian-science-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org
>
> is that it, or are there some more packages?

No, not yet.  But the intention is different.  We just try to take over
any scientific software that is *not* *yet* group maintained.  So if the
maintenance of a pckage is fine there is no need to take it over.  Do you
think that the list above fits in the scope of "Scientific Computing?"
I do not think so.

BTW, the Debian Science effort is much older than pkg-scicomp-devel - so
whoever this effort started pkg-scicomp-devel outside of Debian Science
seemed to have had his reasons.  I do not want to question these reasons
and if it is a pure packaging effort I see no problem in a small team
that consist of computing experts caring for a more narrowed topic.

> I am asking to find out where is the best place to maintain the
> atlas3.8 packages. It seems to me the Debian Scientific Computation
> Team is more suited for that, given
> that it already maintains many similar packages.

I'd suggest to ask there and if you might find coworkers there who
are volunteering to help you in packaging you should probably accept
this help.

Kind regards

          Andreas.
-- 
http://fam-tille.de