Inclusion in a debian repository

[cyraxjoe]

Currently Debian distributes what it seems to be a very old version in comparison (1.12), based solely in the version numbering and release date, I believe is one of the original sources that was merged, based in the readme description. Is there any particular reason why is that? Given that the required build files for such package are already part of this repo (and they do work, recently tested in debian bullseye), is it just a matter of coordination with a debian maintainer? Or is there something else?.

Personally I have a particular interest in this package because is a dependency of Nix and the packaging effort of nix in debian would benefit itself by having a recent editline in the official repos, currently they have opted for trying to implement readline support in nix PR1/merged PR2/pending instead of packaging this library. At this time, Nix doesn't have the autocomplete functionality for the readline build option and it seems that the the Nix maintainers are even reconsidering the idea of allowing the extra option to support readline and stick only to editline.

Not sure if this is the best place to get more context. But I suppose it would be better to have this discussion in some place that can be publicly found for any future reference.

Thanks.

[troglobit]

Hi, glad you asked! I adopted editline 12 years ago for a project at work. To ensure the best level of functionality I've merged not just Debian's fixes, but a lot of others and also developed new functionality and bug fixes over the years.

I have contacted the Debian maintainer several times, proposing they switch to my version, but not even once has he written back, so after a while I gave up and added my own debian/ packaging, based on the official. But if someone else is willing to put in the time and effort to talk to the Debian people, I'm more than willing to help out any way I can.

[cyraxjoe]

I see... okay then, I'll try to get in touch with the maintainer or any other Debian maintainer/mentor/sponsor that might be required. At least to have a clear answer from Debian.

Stay tuned.

[cyraxjoe]

Apparently the maintainer is also in GitHub as @samhocevar, but I suppose it would be better to start the discussion over the debian-mentors mailing list. Maybe he no longer uses his debian email.

[troglobit]

@cyraxjoe any progress on this?