> I don't understand this statement. It's not like it's the package split
> that makes it more or less maintenable IMHO. Actually, IME it's often a
> more split package that might be somewhat easier to maintain.
ROOT builds more than a dozen of libraries, even more than Geant4. Since
splitting packages takes a significant amount of time (the entry in control
is basically copy and paste, but creating the .install file isn't that fast),
this takes more than 5 minutes (speaking from experience with Geant4).
In Geant4 I also had the problem that lintian went completely crazy because
it couldn't find the libraries from the other packages.
Since the previous package is so much older, I won't even trying to work
with these files - so much changed it's easier to start from scratch.
I'm not saying I'm not doing it eventually, but for now packaging ROOT
really has different problems. It installs .exe's to /usr/bin, ships tons
of builtin libraries and also has some other terrible design choices in
terms of its build system.
> So history of this package shows that the interest wanes after ~2 years,
> which meakes me wonder wether this is only driven by some external
> factor, like some phd-driven work or similar.
>
> I'm *not* in favor of adding such big piece of software to the archive,
> if it's interest is something that is assured to disappear in a couple
> of years. So please make sure of your motivation and state it.
For me packaging is also driven by the fact that I need it for my studies,
but I don't think that's a problem. It's not different for my other packages
as well. I will probably study physics for at least another 3 years, but I
obviously can't promise I'll loose interest in packaging it eventually.
Regards,
Stephan
