[xml/sgml-pkgs] Re: Bug#350397: ITP: dblatex -- Produces DVI, PostScript, PDF documents from DocBook sources

[Andreas Hoenen]

From: Frank Küster <frank at debian.org>
Subject: Re: Bug#350397: ITP: dblatex -- Produces DVI, PostScript, PDF documents from DocBook sources
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 19:26:27 +0100

> Andreas Hoenen <andreas.hoenen at arcor.de> wrote:
> 
> > Package: wnpp
> > Severity: wishlist
> > Owner: Andreas Hoenen <andreas.hoenen at arcor.de>
> >
> >
> > * Package name    : dblatex
> >   Version         : 0.1.8
> >   Upstream Author : Benoit Guillon <marsgui at users.sourceforge.net>
> > * URL             : http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/
> > * License         : GPL
> >   Description     : Produces DVI, PostScript, PDF documents from DocBook sources
> >
> > DocBook to LaTeX Publishing that transforms your SGML/XML DocBook documents to
> > DVI, PostScript or PDF by translating them in pure LaTeX as a first process.
> > MathML 2.0 markups are supported, too. It is a clone of DB2LaTeX.
> 
> ... which is already in Debian, and apparently hardly maintained.  If
> this upstream branch is in fact better suited, and you will have enough
> energy to maintain it properly, I think you should try to replace
> db2latex (and coordinate with its current maintainers).  Helping
> to bring db2latex into a better shape isn't an option for you?
> 
> Regards, Frank
> 
> -- 
> Frank Küster
> Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
> Debian Developer (teTeX)
> 

Hello Frank,

my reason for prefering dblatex over DB2LaTeX is simple.  According to
my experience DB2LaTeX is effectively upstream dead, as there has not
been any release since beginning of 2004, there has not been any mail on
the developers mailing list since over half a year, and there has not
been any answer to a simple patch I submitted half a year ago.  Sorry
for this project, but without active upstream development it does not
seem very useful to me.

In comparison to that the dblatex development is very vivid, when one
reports a bug, in most cases it will be fixed within a few days.  The
upstream author generally is very helpful and would be glad to get the
project packaged in Debian.

I was able to convince the guys on the Debian SGML mailing list that
dblatex should be packaged
(http://lists.debian.org/debian-sgml/2005/10/msg00014.html), they were
asking for a voluntary maintainer in response.  Unfortunately noone
there did react to my offer to package dblatex and to my question if
someone would be interested in sponsorship; traffic on this mailing list
fell silent since December...

Thus I want to send an RFS to the Debian mentor mailing list in a few
days when I have finally tested my packaging efforts.

I understand the hesitation in including just another DocBook-pdf tool,
but to me like to some other people at the moment it just seems the most
usable and promising solution.

Regards, Andreas Hoenen