I intent to take over the sgml-tools package. The sgml-tools Debian package is the version 1 of the now called SGMLtools <http://www.sgmltools.org/> which is separately packaged under the name sgmltools-2.
Why maintaining an old version? ------------------------------- SGMLtools version 1 uses the LinuxDoc SGML DTD. SGMLtools version 2 uses the DocBook DTD. The Linux Documentation Project <http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/> used LinuxDoc and is now supposed to use DocBook <http://www.nwalsh.com/docbook/index.html>. Other free projects (specially FreeBSD <http://www.freebsd.org/docproj/sgml.html>) switched from LinuxDoc to the more featured and more standard DocBook. Therefore, the SGMLtools version 1 is officially orphaned upstream. But, in practice, it failed: not *one* Linux HOWTO switched to DocBook and the SGMLtools project collapsed. Now, even version 2 is officially suspended <http://www.sgmltools.org/suspended.html>. Therefore, it is very important for Debian to continue supporting SGMLtools version 1. This does not mean I advise using LinuxDoc. I use DocBook myself. But we should be able to process HOWTO and other Linux documenation. Side note: dpkg itself source-depends on sgml-tools (#41844). Why a take over? ---------------- The Debian package sgml-tools is de facto orphaned for a long time. See its list of bugs for a proof. The current maintainer, Sven Rudolph, agress to give it. I made two NMUs before the take over and they apparently succeeded. Several old bugs were fixed. Why me? ------- Because.
