On May 22, Kendrick Myatt wrote > Be happy to make them... what all is involved? Do I have to have permission > of the author or anything weird like that? Please point me in the direction > oif whatever I need to get started.
Sorry for the delay... To get started building Debian packages, you should take a look at the "Debian Packaging Manual" and the "Debian Policy Manual". The former describes the technical details of building packages (what goes into a Debian source package, what goes into a .deb file, etc.) It comes comes with the "dpkg" package, so you should already have it installed under /usr/doc/dpkg/packaging.html The policy manual describes what should go into a Debian package and how it should be organized (permissions of files, etc.) To get it, install the "debian-policy" package. Section 6 talks about how to become a Debian developper, so you'll definitely want to read that one. Another section talks about "package copyrights" (what kinds of copyrights are too restrictive for Debian, etc.) Usually you don't need to ask permission from the upstream author... they either allow other people to modify their program and upload binaries, or they don't. To know if you're allowed, you'll have to read the package's copyright notice. For instance, packages which are distributed using the Artistic License, the GPL or the BSD license are fine... in these cases, there's no problem with packaging up the program for Debian and you don't need to ask any kind of permission to do so. If you're not sure whether the package's license allows you to package it up for Debian, ask on the debian-devel mailing list and people will help you. Finally, to create Debian packages, you'll need the "dpkg-dev" package... but you probably already have it installed since it is marked with "priority: important". [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Karl R. Sackett) has his name listed besides the "satan" and "gabriel" packages in the "Work-Needing and Prospective Packages" list, so if you were planning to package one of these you should email him first to ask him if he's still insterested in packaging them up. Hopefully that answers your questions... If you have any more, don't hesitate to ask them, either here or on debian-devel. Thanks, Christian
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