[Solved] rapidly developing packages older than a year?

[wpkzz]

Hello fellow gentooers:

Just a small question. Sometimes certain packages fall behind by a long shot to what the original developers call stable.
My particular case is the linear algebra library/interface armadillo, http://arma.sourceforge.net/, which I like a lot.
The "stable" amd64 gentoo "branch" lists version 3.4.4, which according to developers of armadillo is forgotten (they do not list it
anymore in their page, it is from October 2012). The 4.3 is the version that they give support right now.
Of course this is a particular example that interests me, but I am sure there are more.
Why is this? Is there a particular reason for not keeping up to date with this sort of libraries?

Have a great day.
wpkzz

[eccerr0r]

File a version bump request on bugs.gentoo.org

Mostly it's because whoever was maintaining the ebuild for Gentoo lost interest in it, and maybe someone else could pick it up and make another ebuild for the new version.

Or perhaps there's no longer dependencies to it, so it gets forgotten...
_________________
Intel Core i7 2700K/Radeon R7 250/24GB DDR3/256GB SSD
What am I supposed watching?

[NeddySeagoon]

wpkzz,

Renaming the ebuild by doing

[wpkzz]

Thank you NeddySeagoon, the recipe that you indicated is adecuate to solve this particular problem (I do not know how to create MY overlay, but I'll get into it, right now I have my armadillo-4.3). Still, I find peculiar that a good, nice, active piece of software is not being updated in the main branch... probably has to do with what eccerr0r pointed- no one is doing what you sugested doing locally at upstream, that is, no one is taking care of updating the ebuilds for armadillo in particular. May I file still the bug as suggested or even (after testing this version) offer myself to update the general ebuild for portage?

wpkzz

[NeddySeagoon]

wpkzz,

Your overlay is explained it the Gentoo handbook

File a bug, include the recipie and explain how you tested and the results you got.
Bump requests that explain what to do, the testing and results leave the devs very little to do.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[wpkzz]

Thanks, NeddySeagoon and eccerr0r,

I shall file the error in the bug reports with the recipie, tests and my test of the functionality of the library. I hope then that the ebuild gets proper attention.
After filing I shall mark the thread as Solved.

¡Gracias Raza!
wpkzz

[steveL]

The overlay instructions need updating; I recently updated my tip on setting up a local overlay which explains a bit more on repoman as well.

wrt to the wider question, wpkzz, as others have said it's just a question of when someone gets round to it. You could think about becoming a proxy-maintainer for the package in question. That means you'd file new ebuilds for new versions, and a gentoo developer (like the current maintainer, or someone from the herd) would review them before committing them to tree.

It's worth doing for a package you care about using, since it means it'll get more testing and thus me more stable for your uses in the longer-term. Though it does mean you have to help other users when they run into problems, too.

It's not just for "abandoned" packages that are maintainer-needed, from what I've seen on IRC. Though you could also just contribute by testing and submitting new ebuilds via bugzilla (which is the stage before proxy-maintenance.)
Speaking of which you should check out:
IRC:chat.freenode.net #gentoo (support) and #gentoo-chat if you're not there already.

#gentoo-dev-help can give you help with ebuilds, and you can find out more about proxy-maintenance.

If IRC seems a bit overwhelming, /join #friendly-coders -- it was setup by #gentoo-chat regulars including me ;) -- I'm igli when online.

Regards,
steveL