[packman] Announcement: tools for web developers (tidy, mod_tidy, w3c markup validator)

[Sierk Bornemann]

Hi!

I am primary a web developer, and my interest is very high, that the 
popular SUSE Linux offers tools to make a (web-)developer's life easier.
Fedora has an eye on developers, also Debian. Why not also SUSE? Making 
the openSUSE platform interesting for developers more than ever before?

Since month, I build my own RPMs of tidy (http://tidy.sourceforge.net) 
and mod_tidy (http://mod-tidy.sourceforge.net/), which both have been 
also taken as a basis for SuSEs current tidy packages on 
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/apache/tidy/ and mod_tidy packages on 
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/apache/apache-mod_tidy/. Unfortunately, 
SUSEs official packages are not updated so regulary, as I wish they 
could be, so I  want to point to my resources on 
http://sierkbornemann.de/pub/tools/tidy/ and
http://sierkbornemann.de/pub/tools/mod_tidy/, where I store much more 
up-to-date RPMs for SUSE Linux.

Since May 2005, I stay in contact from time to time with Peter Poeml, 
the Apache maintainer of SuSE.
I offered him my packages in June this year, and to my delight he was 
very pleased and didn't hesitate to take them over and put them onto 
SUSEs FTP server. Thanks him, my tidy and mod_tidy packages have found 
their way to the official SUSE FTP servers. :-)
Since june, there hasn't changed anything to these packages, regarding 
that I offer up-to-date packages (mod_tidy has significally changed 
since June 2005, because of changes in licence and project owner) and 
update them regulary.
These packages have greatfully found their way into SUSE 10, what I 
appreciate a lot. But unfortunately, especially in the case of 
mod_tidy, these packages still are in the state of June 2005. That's 
sub-optimal, because from my point of view, there has been enough time 
to bring these packages in sync with my latest ones.
I also already have offered my validator packages -- but still without 
response, if these packages also will be taken officially by SUSE...
The W3C Validator developer team would appreciate this a lot...

These URLs on my personal site are still inofficial (for developers 
only). I hope, that in long time view the official SuSE resources get 
in sync with wether my packages, which try to be as close and 
up-to-date as possible to the original, or with the official project 
resources.
Since several weeks, I also offer the official W3C Markup Validator of 
http://validator.w3.org/ as a RPM for SUSE Linux. These packages are 
still located on 
http://sierkbornemann.de/pub/tools/w3c-markup-validator/. As it 
happened with my tidy and mod_tidy packages, I hope, my w3c validator 
packages will be copyied to one of SUSEs FTP-Servers or another 
repository like yours and offered from there to the public (here again, 
I want to keep the traffic to my server in a reasonable limit, that's 
because I hope, that somebody of Novell/SuSE gives them a place on a 
public SuSE FTP server).
Concerning the W3C Markup Validator, I went on optimizing it for local 
use (the W3C developers themselves have an eye on it and made a lot of 
adjustments). It's easy to install and configurate. Hints for 
improvements are welcome (this belongs to the validator as to tidy and 
to mod_tidy). For the near future, I aim SUSE Linux packages of the W3C 
Validator to be also mentioned on http://validator.w3.org/source/ 
(besides Fedora and Debian packages). I have strong encouragement from 
the Validator Dev team in continuing so (they are waiting for a URL 
from me, where SUSEs validator packages are offered to the public), and 
I still hope, Novell/SUSE is able to give me more official assistance 
(minimum: updating more frequently the packages taken from me).

Several days ago, I wrote to the mailing list of 
opensuse-packaging at opensuse.org and told the stuff above to get any help.
Pascal Bleser made a response and recommended me to use your repository.
So, I ask you, if I can offer my packages from your public repository 
to keep the footprint of my private server traffic in a reasonable limit?
What do I have to do to use your repository?


Sierk Bornemann

Sierk Bornemann | Hannover | Germany
e-mail:  sierkb at gmx.de
URL:     http://sierkbornemann.de/