Dear Julian, On 04.03.2014 20:52, Julian Taylor wrote: > midas is unsupported upstream and should die, I don't think there is > much point in packaging it.
What do you mean with "unsupported"? The current release is released on Jan 12, 2014. The latest history is: 13SEPpl1.2 - 2014-01-12 13SEPpl1.1 - 2013-11-02 13SEPpl1.0 - 2013-09-07 12FEBpl1.3 - 2012-06-23 12FEBpl1.2 - 2012-04-23 12FEBpl1.1 - 2012-04-02 12FEBpl1.0 - 2012-02-02 11SEPpl1.2 - 2011-12-06 11SEPpl1.1 - 2011-11-07 11SEPpl1.0 - 2011-10-07 which shows a regular (~yearly) version cycle with bugfix releases after each (including the latest one). Neither the web page nor the included documentation claim the end of maintenance. Just the "direct Midas support" ended in 2012: "As of May 2012 there will be no more direct Midas support offered by ESO. Instead, users who have problems or questions concerning ESO-MIDAS running on their systems are advised to use the moderated mailing list [email protected] for obtaining feedback and solutions to their questions from other users." This sounds like the normal case for a software package. Take eso-skycat as an example for a software unmaintained by ESO (but maintenance has taken over by Starlink, so it is still not dead). I agree that ESO-MIDAS is an old piece of software, with a design from the early nineties, quite ugly etc. However, is has its user base. And since I was asked for some help in installing ESO-MIDAS, I think it is still a good idea to have it packaged. When searching on the net, you also still find some recent tutorials on using ESO-MIDAS. Astronomers seem to be quite conservative when it comes to software tools: IRAF is 20 years old now, and still in use (and development). Skycat goes back to 1996, given up by ESO in 2008, and still somehow alive. Or have a look, on what packages SAOImage DS9 is based on (funtools, blt, tkhtml3): zombies everywhere. Heavily used today. Best regards Ole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: https://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
