Ktorrent Status/Replacement

[Ralph Janke]

On 2014-11-20 10:26, Scarlett Clark wrote:
> On Thursday, November 20, 2014 10:21:41 AM Ralph Janke wrote:
>> On 2014-11-20 09:34, Harald Sitter wrote:
>> > On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 3:27 PM, Scott Kitterman <ubuntu at kitterman.com>
>> >
>> > wrote:
>> >> On Thursday, November 20, 2014 03:17:33 PM Harald Sitter wrote:
>> >>> fwiw if only we had a policy to deal with dead upstreams....
>> >>>
>> >>> On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Scott Kitterman
>> >>> <ubuntu at kitterman.com>
>> >>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>> > Ktorrent is the current default torrent client that we provide in
>> >>> > Kubuntu.
>> >>> > Now that we've transitioned to Plasma 5, it's no longer
>> >>> > buildable/installable in "Vivid".
>> >>> >
>> >>> > The upstream web site is down: http://ktorrent.org/
>> >>>
>> >>> ^ that wouldn't be the qualifier on whether it suffers from dead
>> >>> upstream
>> >>>
>> >>> > I looked in KDE git and there's no sign of a KF5/Plasma 5 port:
>> >>> > https://projects.kde.org/projects/extragear/network/ktorrent/repositor
>> >>> > y
>> >>>
>> >>> ^ that wouldn't either
>> >>>
>> >>> > My conclusion is that ktorrent isn't an option for Vivid, so we either
>> >>> > need to stop shipping a torrent client or pick a different one.
>> >>>
>> >>> ^ those wouldn't be the primary options
>> >>>
>> >>> food for thought
>> >>
>> >> JR fixed it, so it's not an immediate issue.
>> >>
>> >> IMO it wasn't so much a dead upstream issue as a no longer works with
>> >> Plasma 5
>> >> issue.  The dead upstream just made that less likely to get better on
>> >> its own.
>> >
>> > my point is that there is no dead upstream, as no one tried to talk to
>> > upstream (nor brought it to the attention of the large kde developer
>> > community).
> 
>> 
>> The question is IMHO if you could ever consider an upstream dead. By
>> definition
>> this would mean that it would never become alive again. However, in 
>> Open
>> Source,
>> anybody can pick up the source and so a new group of people can take
>> over the
>> maintenance without anybody else being able to prevent it.
>> 
>> So I would rephrase this question. How would you consider that a 
>> source
>> is
>> obsolete in the sense that there is a better one the replaces the 
>> first
>> one
>> and it does not make sense to put any kind of work in it anymore. Or, 
>> if
>> it
>> is still a valid choice, how to create the helpful flow of information
>> that
>> allows people to step forward to keep it maintained.
> 
> Just an FYI Ktorrent is next on the Gardening team to do. We were able 
> to get
> a new release with k3b and sparked new life into it. Please don't deem
> Ktorrent dead just yet.
> Scarlett

So, How would I be able to contribute to the gardening of ktorrent 
without
spending a lot of time with administrative stuff? While I am passionate 
about
writing software, I have grown tired with the administrative hurdles in
Open Source projects and currently rather started my own projects which 
I
can just work on whenever I like to. However, I am willing to give it 
another
try with ktorrent (or other similar things) if it helps.

-- 
txwikinger

Long live free/libre software