On Sun, Dec 30, 2001 at 06:43:57PM +0100, Bas Zoetekouw wrote: > I don't agree. In a perfect world, yes, we would have all available > software packaged for debian and all packages maintained. But that's > just not reality. It's not even necessary. There is no need for > ``backup maintainers'': if a package is orphaned[1], then either > somebody else adopts the package (in which case there is no problem), or > the package should be dropped [2] (because apparently, it is > ``unneeded'').
This happens eventually, but it introduces a delay of weeks or months in which the package sits untended because no-one is sure what's going on. We can do without this delay, and having someone who feels "allowed" to fix up the package as necessary with minimal delay would be very useful. I have a backup for one of my packages in the base system, groff. Nobody who knows much about man-db has stepped forward yet. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
