Re: Linux Mint 19.3 has 3-year-old ddrescue!

[Jay R. Ashworth]

> From: "Shahrukh Merchant" <address@hidden>

> Hi António,
> 
>> I guess that by "Linux" you mean "a given distribution".
> 
> Or I suppose I meant "a given repository," which then affects all
> distributions that use that repository ... though as I mentioned I'm
> still trying to figure out the correlation between those two. :-)

Each distribution (well, each release of each distribution, but it's generally
the same person) has a role called Release Configuration Manager, whose job is
to select the packages and versions that will be in that release, building
test versions of the distro and running them (hopefully) through distro-level 
test scaffolding to make sure everything builds and all dependencies are 
fulfilled.

That's the person -- or one of zir deputies -- who is generally responsible
for making sure the most recent version of a package is in the distro...

but "the most recent" generally means "in our repo".  That person is generally
called a "maintainer" or "packager" -- and they might be on the distro side or 
they might be on the package developer side; different combinations of distro
and package approach it different ways, usually for hysterical raisins.

Finding out who the maintainer is for the combination of package and repo is
the important part -- sometimes developers know who their packagers are, 
sometimes RCM's know who *their* packagers are, and sometimes it's just some 
random person with commit access to the repo, and someone's gotta look it up.

This google search looks to have some informative data:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=ALeKk03TeSpmd8E_fcx81ut8hI6ujK7hRw:1587413591635&q=ddrescue+%22packager%22&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2sPa56PfoAhWBUt8KHf4eB2gQ5t4CMAB6BAgCEAk&biw=1184&bih=561

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       address@hidden
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