On Mon, Oct 24, 2005 at 09:16:06AM +0200, Jan Iven wrote: > Dear all, > > at the "Spring" Hepix conference in Karlsruhe, we had complaints that SL > wasn't "scientific" enough, i.e. was missing several packages. > > I had contacted several developers to see whether they could make > +maintain SL versions (RPM+SRPM). Examples where there was some > willingness are OpenScientist and GSL, with ROOT and GEANT4 at least not > against the idea. I also have some things I prepared myself (xmgrace or > (eventually) a recompilable CERNLIB), which currently would go into the > CERN repository but are useful outside. > > The question is where to store these - I don't want such things to > become "CERN"-additions, but to be available to the wider community. We > could put them into the CERN "extras" repository and then mirror (I > think Connie already takes things from there), but I think some specific > section on scientificlinux.org would be more appropriate (including > instructions for package authors). How about an orthogonal project like scirpm.org, that would provide packages for SL as well as Fedora Core and other non-Enterprise distros? I know that it is very difficult to introduce Enterprise distros on end-user desktops in academic research/universities at least in Germany, and there was already some small (momentum) within the Fedora Core Community in the past to create the above scientific oriented repo. So extending to/embracing Fedora Core would perhaps make sense. -- Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net