On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 11:32:19PM -0400, Chris Anderson wrote: > I'm the current maintainer for xtrlock and it was abandoned upstream > years ago (1996?). I have an updated package where I rewrote the build > system since the old one used Imake and some flags that no longer were > relevant. I fixed a few minor other issues in the source as well. > Someone mentioned I might as well declare myself upstream since I've > already rewrote parts of it (build) and because it's a pretty small code > base. I'm just wondering how I might go about declaring myself its > upstream maintainer and updating the package accordingly. My assumption > is that I should note the change in the changelog and upgrade the > version from 2.0-9 to 2.01.
There's a good description of how to go about "hijacking" a piece of software in one of Eric S. Raymond's essays -- I think it's "Homesteading the Noosphere". Basically, you need to be open and up-front about it, and attempt to contact the previous authors and such. For a truly dead, abandoned project, you can just make a new release -- put up a webpage or SF project, and start hacking away. - Matt
