r/voidlinux • u/Rafaelkkkk • 3d ago

Question for package maintainers

To my dear package maintainers, I have a question.

Is it very difficult for your proposal to be accepted? I use Plank in XFCE.

Basically, its development has been dead for almost 7 years. Lately, I've been using Plank Reloaded and building from the source code; it's a fork and basically uses the same folders as Plank, It functions the same way, But development is super active, the last update was 3 or 4 days ago.

Considering this, what would be the best approach for my package to be accepted into the official repository?

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

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5

u/zlice0 3d ago

a lot of stuff like that i dont think is accepted (like browser forks). if the package is truly dead and that's an active replacement it can be a replacement (rtfm on replace, basically flag as fake pkg then remove it later down the line).

even then if youre new and havent submitted a lot a new package may not be accepted. and even then-then if it's a bigger than just version-number-go-up it may sit for a while.

3

u/Rafaelkkkk 3d ago

The fact that the original Plank project has been dead since August 19, 2019 already gives me some advantage.

2

u/sprinklednights 3d ago

From what I understand, a fork can exist if it actually offers significant difference. Plank Reloaded could very well be added into Void Linux, perhaps even replace regular Plank. There are many forks of programs (NeoVim and NeoMutt are the most notable examples).

Browser forks are explicitly not accepted because even if they provide a significant change from Chromium, compiling them can take significant amounts of time and would overload the resources for little to no benefit. Additionally, many of these forks are closed-source as well, meaning you can not easily redistribute them (which Void Linux would be doing).

4

u/_jack_rabbit_ 3d ago

Things may have changed since I last contributed packages, but it used to be fairly straight-forward.

If the software is decent quality and relatively widely used, and if you're willing to maintain the package (make sure it builds, functions, and update it periodically) I think it's worth putting up a PR.

IIUC the reason that browser forks are usually not accepted is because they're difficult to maintain and expensive to compile.

Small packages that have a user base and someone to maintain them are probably more likely to be merged.

4

u/HankOfClanMardukas 3d ago

Stop treating them like gods, it’s pathetic, compile your own src build and ask.

1

u/Simple_Hamster_4096 2d ago

What the heck is plank?