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  • Anybody still using XRN and want to see it in Debian?

    From Jonathan Kamens@21:1/5 to All on Sun Sep 24 00:59:23 2023
    Hi all,

    I'm the maintainer of XRN, an old-school UNIX GUI News
    reader. It's definitely showing its age, but it's still
    perfectly useable if you don't need your News reader to
    hnadle MIME or multipart messages. It's got some pretty
    advanced KILL-file functionality, it's wicked fast, and it
    uses a ridiculously small amount of memory compared to modern
    applications, which makes sense considering that it's nearly
    50 years old (I'm posting this message using XRN, and it's
    taking up less than 7MB of RAM, compare to over 1GB for my
    running Thunderbird!).

    Anyway, I recently decided it was about time for me to learn
    how to package software for Debian, and I decided to use the
    XRN source code as the sample upstream application to practice
    on, so now I've got a Debian XRN package pretty much ready to
    go. I'm wondering if I should try to find someone to sponsor
    the package to get it added to Debian, but that's going to be
    impossible unless I can prove there's sufficient interest to
    justify it.

    So, the question is, are you still using XRN, and if there
    were a package for it in Debian and the Linux distributions
    built on top of Debian, would you use it? If so, please email
    me and let me know. Or you can post here if you don't want to
    email for whatever reason.

    Similarly, if you have any suggestions for where else I should
    look to try to find other XRN users who might use a Debian
    package, please let me know that as well.

    Thanks!

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  • From Marco Moock@21:1/5 to All on Sun Sep 24 08:06:46 2023
    Am 24.09.2023 um 00:59:23 Uhr schrieb Jonathan Kamens:

    So, the question is, are you still using XRN, and if there
    were a package for it in Debian and the Linux distributions
    built on top of Debian, would you use it? If so, please email
    me and let me know. Or you can post here if you don't want to
    email for whatever reason.

    Similarly, if you have any suggestions for where else I should
    look to try to find other XRN users who might use a Debian
    package, please let me know that as well.

    I have never heard of it.

    Is it hard to create Debian packages for it?
    If not: Why not simply creating and uploading them?

    That enables easy usage for many users because other distributions take
    the packages from Debian.

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  • From candycanearter07@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Sun Sep 24 01:56:22 2023
    On 9/24/23 01:06, Marco Moock wrote:
    Am 24.09.2023 um 00:59:23 Uhr schrieb Jonathan Kamens:

    So, the question is, are you still using XRN, and if there
    were a package for it in Debian and the Linux distributions
    built on top of Debian, would you use it? If so, please email
    me and let me know. Or you can post here if you don't want to
    email for whatever reason.

    Similarly, if you have any suggestions for where else I should
    look to try to find other XRN users who might use a Debian
    package, please let me know that as well.

    I have never heard of it.

    Is it hard to create Debian packages for it?
    If not: Why not simply creating and uploading them?

    That enables easy usage for many users because other distributions take
    the packages from Debian.


    Is it up somewhere right now? If so, I'll take a look at it. Sounds
    intriguing.
    --
    --
    user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

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  • From Marco Moock@21:1/5 to All on Sun Sep 24 09:57:52 2023
    Am 24.09.2023 um 01:56:22 Uhr schrieb candycanearter07:

    Is it up somewhere right now?

    Please explain what that means.

    If so, I'll take a look at it. Sounds intriguing.

    Ubuntu and Linux Mint take most of their packages from Debian, so they
    will also include them.

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  • From Michael Uplawski@21:1/5 to All on Sun Sep 24 10:27:51 2023
    Good morning

    Jonathan Kamens hat geschrieben:

    I'm wondering if I should try to find someone to sponsor
    the package to get it added to Debian, but that's going to be
    impossible unless I can prove there's sufficient interest to
    justify it.

    Will you continue to *maintain* the software and, as comparisons are inevitable, to add functionality that some (a few or many) users will ask for?

    I would not advocate adding to Debian what would be basically a dead project from the start.

    In short: What are the perspectives for XRN ? Do you seek the collaboration of others in the development?

    Cheerio

    Michael
    --
    Es ist an der Zeit

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  • From William Unruh@21:1/5 to Marco Moock on Sun Sep 24 15:54:57 2023
    On 2023-09-24, Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
    Am 24.09.2023 um 01:56:22 Uhr schrieb candycanearter07:

    Is it up somewhere right now?

    Please explain what that means.

    Up somewhere= available for download somewhere.


    If so, I'll take a look at it. Sounds intriguing.

    Ubuntu and Linux Mint take most of their packages from Debian, so they
    will also include them.


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  • From Spiros Bousbouras@21:1/5 to no@thanks.net on Thu Sep 28 19:27:43 2023
    On Sun, 24 Sep 2023 01:56:22 -0500
    candycanearter07 <no@thanks.net> wrote:
    On 9/24/23 01:06, Marco Moock wrote:
    Am 24.09.2023 um 00:59:23 Uhr schrieb Jonathan Kamens:

    So, the question is, are you still using XRN, and if there
    were a package for it in Debian and the Linux distributions
    built on top of Debian, would you use it? If so, please email
    me and let me know. Or you can post here if you don't want to
    email for whatever reason.

    There was a package for Etch Debian but not Lenny Debian (and
    presumably not the Debian releases after Lenny). Do you (Jonathan)
    know what happened ?

    Is it up somewhere right now? If so, I'll take a look at it. Sounds intriguing.

    http://www.mit.edu/people/jik/software/xrn.html

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  • From J.B. Nicholson@21:1/5 to Jonathan Kamens on Fri Sep 29 02:21:58 2023
    Jonathan Kamens <jik@kamens.us> wrote:
    So, the question is, are you still using XRN, and if there
    were a package for it in Debian and the Linux distributions
    built on top of Debian, would you use it? If so, please email
    me and let me know. Or you can post here if you don't want to
    email for whatever reason.

    If the license were a free software license (see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html for a list of such
    licenses and comments about each license), I'd take a look at XRN.

    But from what I can see in XRN's COPYRIGHT file, this part:
    Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and
    its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted
    [...]

    makes me think that this license does not qualify as a free software
    license.

    Am I correct to understand that one may only distribute XRN
    without charging a fee?

    If so, would you consider switching the license to a free software
    license?

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