Re: Importing a2ps onto Savannah

[Akim Demaille]

| Akim Demaille wrote:
| > 
| > Hi People (ed :).
| 
| Hi Akim,

Hi!

Please, keep this public.  It is important that I'm stop being Mr a2ps.

| > I'm finishing to move a2ps onto Savannah.  It was quite some work,
| > mostly for one reason: I have two branches on a2ps.  On it now named
| > 4.1x, which is meant to become a2ps 4.14 etc.  The other is 4.50.  It
| > was the one I meant to release two years ago, but since that period,
| > bug reports have accumulated, so the urgency is to release 4.1x.
| > 
| > Do you have enough CVS knowledge to fetch 4.1x?  That's really the one
| > we have to work on.
| 
| I shall attempt to fetch 4.1x tonight.  I've used RCS extensively and
| more recently Clearcase.  Somehow I've managed to avoid CVS, I'm up
| for the task.

That's great!  Requirements: you need Automake 1.6, Autoconf 2.53, and
Gettext 0.10.40.  Running autoreconf -f -v -i should bring the CVS
source files, into a usable tarball.  Please, take notes on your
problems, so that I can help in the future.

| > The tasks are:
| > 
| > - getting the patches that Dirk has made in the Debian system, send
| >   them on this list, and once approved, apply them.
| 
| Where are those patches?  I think I'll have no problem with CVS

Actually, I had a glance already, and there don't seem to be many.
I'll handle that part.  Another precious help would be that you dig
into the Debian bugs, and try to address them.  That's the most urgent
task.

| but I'm kind of unfamiliar with the patching/approval mechanisms.

It means you change a2ps, you send the diff -u on this list, and if I
say yes, you apply it.


| > - fixing some bugs (are you member of bugs-a2ps?)
| 
| I've just joined.

Welcome :)

| > - applying new/upgrade ssh files that I'll send here.
| > 
| > Patches applied to 4.13 should be applied to 4.50 too.  I don't want
| > to fight with CVS merges :(  It really means, each time you install a
| > patch, it should be adjusted and installed on 4.50 (which is the main
| > CVS trunk).
| > 
| > What do you think?
| 
| Let's start slowly, I'm really excited about being able to help out.
| I'm a beginner at some of the methodology and would like a recipe or
| checklist on how to perform tasks.

Agreed.  Actually, forget about new ssh.  That's for latter.  We want
to replace 4.13 as soon as possible, and then focus on 4.50 only.  Any
improvement (= not a really needed bug fix) is somewhat a loss of time.

| (My day job is verifying large ASICs, chips, essentially programming
| in specialized languages, and C/C++, and using proper methodologies
| in revision control).

Wow :)