Lots of people have made cool and useful programs, but they aren't used as much as they should be. Part of the reason is that when presented with two solutions for a problem, a user tends to go for the one that is already packaged and a simple "pkg_add" or "apt install" away, rather than needing to clone a repo from github, install it in some non-standard way and maybe even fix compilation errors. Or maybe they don't even know about your program, because when looking for solutions they just use "apt search".

So, to increase the number of users of nixers software, I want to start a community initiative to start packaging software that appears on http://git.nixers.net.

Here's what I've started doing (and I want others to join in). Anyone who wants their project packaged should make a repo, push it to git.nixers.net and make their desire known in this thread. Then, we go through the projects and:

* Help the authors to clean up platform-specific code
* Try to build and use their software on many operating systems and architectures to find bugs, issues
* And finally, submit packages to Debian, Fedora, {Open,Free}BSD, pkgsrc, etc.

Once a project is packaged for even one distro, it will become a lot easier to package for others since the decisions about where in the filesystem to install files etc. will have already been made. And this will spread the word about nixers.net in the best way possible.

If you would like someone to help package your project, post in this thread and get your project on http://git.nixers.net. I think you have to contact z3bra for that. Or just post your SSH public key as part of your request for help.

If you're willing to help others package their projects, also post in this thread. Include the operating systems you want to make packages for and your SSH public key (if you want access to git.nixers.net). Then make a well named repo (like "freebsd-ports" "debian-packages" or something) and get to work!

I an 100% certain there is demand for the type of software nixers users write: I got 2bwm accepted into the OpenBSD packages very quickly just yesterday. Also this is a great way to give back to the community of whichever OS it is you use.