Debian package

[Nick Hilliard]

Hi Faidon,

> Our operating system of choice is Debian GNU/Linux and I'm a member of
> the Debian Project (a so called "Debian Developer"). Hence, it should
> come as no suprise that I'd like to work on bringing IRRToolSet in the
> Debian Operating System :)

cool!

> I have already filled[1] an "Intent to Package" (ITP) bug with our bug
> tracking system and I've created a preliminary package. The only part
> missing right now is the copyright documentation, as required by
> Debian's policies. As soon as this is completed (which, unfortunately,
> is not a trivial task, compared to the package's overall simplicity),
> I'll do a first upload to Debian.

Yes, the copyright situation is not good.  I've particularly been trying to 
get rid of code which is part copyright of IBM (the bulk of this is in the 
re2dfa library, which it may be possible to swap out with another library). 
  Most of the rest is either GPL, RIPE NCC (BSD style) or USC non-commercial.

> As the first step of cooperation, I'd like to learn about your release
> plans. As I already said above, I'm planning on packaging the
> cruft-cleanout branch; if I've understood correctly, this is going to
> transform to the 5.0.0 release.

That seems to be the consensus at the moment.  I would expect that there 
will be a 5.0.0 release fairly shortly.  Maybe in a couple of weeks.

> What is your release schedule in general? Are you following a
> stable/unstable versioning scheme? Do you plan on doing frequent or
> infrequent releases?

um, "yes" - definitely!

Coming from a bsd background, I like the stable branch / unstable trunk way 
of doing things.  But really, this is just a matter of naming.  As regards 
frequency, I have no idea.

Nick