Getting Emacspeak back in Debian Testing

[Paul Gevers]

Hi,

On 24-01-2024 15:49, Shannon Brady via Pkg-a11y-devel wrote:
> Emacspeak has beenremoved from Debian Testing 
> <https://tracker.debian.org/news/1473932/emacspeak-removed-from-testing/> for failing to install <https://bugs.debian.org/1051402>with newer versions of Emacs (version 29 +).

I adopted emacspeak years ago as a service to those that need such 
technologies as I don't use it myself at all (I'm an emacs user). 
However, lisp is not a language I feel remotely comfortable in, so most 
what I did was updating the package and keep it building. However, the 
whole structure of the Debian packaging of emacspeak is ancient (I'm 
particularly thinking of the postinst script here). The emacs ecosystem 
(inside and outside of Debian) has moved on and I have not been able to 
adapt it. (I have discussed the package multiple times on #debian-emacs 
and they strongly suggested to switch a packaging scheme that shared 
with the other emacs ecosystem packages; there are helpers out there).

> We have a few users who rely on emacspeak as their primary screenreader, 
> and are having issues without it.
> 
> With that in mind is there anything that I can do to assist with getting 
> this package back into Debian testing?

Well. I think at this point somebody should really nearly start from 
scratch, I think the current design has worn out beyond usefulness.

Paul
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 495 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-a11y-devel/attachments/20240124/7f9e1564/attachment.sig>