Bug#351385: RE : Re: balsa: 2.3.8 is buggy and obsolete in Etch

[Loïc Minier]

        Hi,

On Wed, Jul 12, 2006, Pierre Morin wrote:
> So this bug is fixed upstream for months and somebody
> successfully compiled the bug-free upstream source.

 Sadly, balsa isn't maintained these days and needs a new Debian
 maintainer.

> I just would like to know how I (Etch *user*) could
> compile from the upstream source to get a working
> balsa. As a user, I don't know much about Debian
> internals. Should I find somewhat balsa-2.3.8.deb.src
> and balsa-2.3.12.src.tgz then "merge or replace" code
> (how again ?) and run "make" or so ?

 It could be trivial, but Debian maintainers usually put a lot of
 efforts in reviewing new upstream releases to adapt the packaging and
 check nothing goes wrong.  In this case, what could appear between
 upstream releases would mostly be new build requirements (higher
 version of build dependencies, or new build dependencies).

 There's a command to help Debian maintainers copy over the packaging
 from one upstream version to another, it's called uupdate, and is
 usually called from uscan (uscan checks for new upstream releases).

 If you want, you can try to "apt-get source balsa", cd in the
 versionned dir, and type "uscan".

 Typical build procedures then apply, see documentation.

> Or could a friendly Debian Gnome maintainer update
> balsa in Etch with an (N)MU ?

 Well, I used to do this when the maintainer started to be missing, but
 I'm too busy for now.  Check if there's a bug requesting the new
 upstream release, and if there isn't one, file one and wait.

   Bye,
-- 
Loïc Minier <lool at dooz.org>