Control: retitle 690531 ITP: iraf -- Astronomical Image Reduction and Analysis Facility Control: owner 690531 !
Hi all, IRAF packaging was on hold for quite a few years, due to its complicated package structure, a buggy installation procedure, major bugs in the code itself, and (most important) major issues in the licensing: The source contain a number of code lines that were copied from the book "Numerical Recipes in Fortran", and these lines are not freely distributable. We are however now about to remove those code lines and to replace them with free code: LAPACK, FFTPACK, and also self-written code where appropriate. So, I think it is now time to officially re-start the packaging. It may still take quite a while until we have something ready, and and any help is appreciated. Since upstream's response is close to zero in the moment, the plan is to create a temporary fork on github, tag a preliminary version "2.16.1p1" (or so) there, and then start packaging from there. Since all changes are also forwarded as pull requests to upstream, there is some hope that the fork will be only temporary, and I hope that we can agree between other distributions (Astroconda, Fedora etc.) to use a common set of patches as long as upstream keeps silent. Some links: * Upstream IRAF repository: https://github.com/iraf/iraf-v216 * My fork: https://github.com/olebole/iraf-v216 (Most patches are in the "merge-all" branch; the NR replacements are in the branch "local/replace-numerical-recipes") * Debian packaging git repository (still untouched): https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/debian-astro/packages/iraf.git * Upstream discussion forum: http://iraf.net Your help is very appreciated here! Please contact me if you want to help, or directly provide patches or pull requests. Best regards Ole