Hi folks,

libs11n[0] is a nice C++ serialisation library. The author makes no
secrets about shortcomings (e.g. when compared to boost's libs11n),
but also has some funky stuff in place no other serialisation
library offers. Quickly: serialisation is saving and storing data
from C++ programmes.

0. http://www.s11n.net

Right now, libs11n 0.8 is in the archives, and it just got an RC
bug[1] today. I feel rather ashamed about this (and had to tag it
wontfix) because rather than fixing this bug, 0.8 should (have long)
be(en) replaced with 1.0/1.1.

1. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=322642

Unfortunately, I have found myself without time for this task. Part
of the reason is that upstream uses his own build system[2], and I've
had troubles getting it to work from debian/rules -- but I have also
not invested more than a few hours in this.

2. http://toc.sourceforge.net/

I am thus soliciting help from people who'd be interested in
packaging libs11n 1.0/1.1 for Debian. It's a shared library, so you
should have experience with Debian packaging, and you should have
read and understood Junichi's excellent library packaging guide[3].

3. http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/co...bpkg-guide.html

I would happily assist anyone with the task but I don't have much
time. Instead, I'd basically be there for questions and help make
sure that we do the right thing wrt SONAMES, library package names,
and file placement.

There are two ways to go about the packaging: convert the package to
GNU autotools (upstream would appreciate and incorporate it), or
attempt to make the build system work with debian/rules. For 0.8,
the latter worked. For 1.0/1.1, a bunch of changes should have made
the task easier, I just didn't have a close look yet.

Upstream is generally responsive, and always open to any kind of
suggestion.

So if you are interested in helping out, please let me know. I'd be
happy to bestow maintainership of the package to you, if you want
it. I'd also be supportive of a small group (2-3) working on this
together.

Thanks for listening.

-- 
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.''`.     martin f. krafft <madduck@debian.org>
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also sprach Isaac Clerencia <isaac@warp.es> [2005.08.12.0925 +0200]:
> Yeah, sure, we were greatly surprised when they started supporting Wesnoth
 ML 
> as a serializator [0] ;).

Human-readable serialisation formats make for great debugging. s11n
also supports some format similar to RFC822, real XML, a binary
format, a plain text format, and it comes with s11nconvert, which
can convert between them.

In general, the architecture is very modular, so it's easy to write
your own format parser or marshaller, or even replace internals,
like the way your own classes are serialised. You can make classes
serialisable without touching them (great for things like
third-party libraries), and support for the STL is already built in.

It's really a worthy library. I wish I had more time. I hope someone
steps up!

-- 
Please do not send copies of list mail to me; I read the list!
 
.''`.     martin f. krafft <madduck@debian.org>
: :'  :    proud Debian developer, admin, user, and author
`. `'`
`-  Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing a system
 
Invalid/expired PGP subkeys? Use subkeys.pgp.net as keyserver!

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