HTML to XHTML patch for pidgin

There are many ways to contribute to Free Software and the path depend both on the people running the project and on the habits of the contributor. This is the story of a trhee lines patch fixing an bug in the libpurple C library of pidgin. A few hours mostly dedicated to finding the proper context and making sure the resulting work met the quality standards of the project.
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Creating a Debian GNU/Linux source package from the XiVO VCS (1/2)

XiVO is developped from a GIT repository and the corresponding Debian GNU/Linux packages are maintained in a SVN repository. An internal tool is used to build Debian GNU/Linux source packages by interpreting their content according to a set of conventions. A shell script was created to document and re-implemnt these conventions. The latest XiVO skaro release for squeeze is used as an example.

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Bio++ packaging

What does it take for Bio++ to enter the official repositories of Debian GNU/Linux ?

Request For Packaging

The first step is to ask for a Debian Developer to package the software. This is called a RFP as in Request For Packaging and it is done by filling a bug report against the wnpp pseudo package. Since Debian packages for Bio++ are already provided the task of the Debian Developer is facilitated.
Even when Debian packages are already available, the odds of seducing a Debian Developer into taking responsibility for the package are small. The quality standards for a package entering Debian are higher than what is implemented by the amateur packager. However, meeting these standards is not a difficult task when using the proper tools.

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Creating an independant XiVO Debian GNU/Linux repository from scratch (part 4/4)

A previous attempt was interrupted because packaging-farm did not support the generation of binary kernel modules packages using module-assistant. A new release implementing this feature, together with support for reprepro was published today (version 1.2.31). The resulting repository should be useable instead of the official lenny-xivo-gallifrey-dev.

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Creating an independant XiVO Debian GNU/Linux repository from scratch (part 3/4)

A previous attempt was interrupted because of missing dependencies and a failure to compile the sangoma-wanpipe package for i386. The dependencies were fixed and the sangoma-wanpipe compiled : the lenny i386 gallifrey repository is now complete. The packaging-farm needs to be improved to support building the kernel binary modules using module-assistant, when appropriate.

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