Re: Co-maintaining Request For rdiff-backup-fs

Hi everybody,

Syed answered offline and he looks like a genuine person, so welcome him 
warmly to the team, he's an rdiff-backup developer now!

@Syed let me and Patrik know if you're missing access rights to manage 
rdiff-backup-fs on your own!

KR, Eric

On 14/01/2026 08:17, Eric L. wrote:
> Hi Syed,
> 
> sorry for the long time to answer, my holiday season was a bit crazy 
> (long travel, Smartphone broken...). Have a happy new year, y'all, BTW.
> 
> First, let me state that we'd be happy to have you as co-maintainer for 
> rdiff-backup-fs, which is indeed currently unmaintained, to the 
> difference of rdiff-backup.
> 
> At the same time, the XZ case [1] has shown us that we need to be 
> careful, so don't take it personally (I don't know you, so it can't be 
> personal) but I'd like to make sure you're "real".
> 
> I've checked OSS Revival and will check your Pull Requests, but it would 
> be great if you could show some prior art and "sign of life". It's a 
> thin line, I also don't want to go into your personal life, but I owe it 
> to our users to be cautious. Feel free to contact me offline if you 
> don't want to go public with whichever information you provide.
> 
> KR, Eric
> 
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor
> 
> On 06/01/2026 08:23, Syed Shahrukh wrote:
>> Dear Patrik,
>>
>> Wishing you a happy new year!
>>
>> I didn't hear from you, so I thought to touch base with you.
>>
>>  From your last email, I sensed that you have plans for rdiff-backup.
>>
>> Please share, so I can align with them within my available bandwidth.
>>
>> I am still interested in co-maintaining rdiff-backup-fs,  so the package
>> has:
>> 1. Releases or tags.
>> 2 Fixes available on the debian side.
>> 3.New feature development.
>>
>> Looking forward to hearing from you.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Syed Shahrukh Hussain.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 4:34 PM Patrik Dufresne <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello Syed,
>>>
>>> Thank you for reaching out, and you are certainly welcome to take over
>>> work on the project. rdiff-backup-fs was originally salvaged by Eric as
>>> part of an effort to centralize everything related to rdiff-backup, 
>>> but it
>>> hasn’t received much attention since then.
>>>
>>> Before moving forward, I would appreciate a bit more background so we 
>>> can
>>> better understand your plans.
>>>
>>>     - What level of involvement are you expecting to have in the 
>>> project?
>>>     - Will you be focusing only on maintaining the Debian packaging, 
>>> or do
>>>     you intend to work on the codebase upstream as well?
>>>     - Do you also plan to contribute to rdiff-backup itself? Any help
>>>     there would be greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>> For context, I’m also developing Rdiffweb and Minarca Data Backup, 
>>> both of
>>> which rely heavily on rdiff-backup. However, I haven’t had as much time
>>> recently to contribute to the core project as I would like, which is why
>>> additional maintainers would be very welcome.
>>>
>>> Looking forward to hearing more about your intentions and how you 
>>> envision
>>> your role.
>>>
>>> Could you also share with us some other work you have done ?
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> On 12/16/25 09:59, Syed Shahrukh wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I am a Debian contributor trying to salvage rdiff-backup-fs on Debian
>>>
>>> I am reaching for co-maintenance of rdiff-backup-fs upstream for long 
>>> term
>>> maintenance.
>>> https://github.com/rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup-fs
>>>
>>> Present state of the repository is not suitable for future debian 
>>> packaging.
>>>
>>> Like tags are not imported from the hg repo like in another fork.
>>> https://github.com/gruszczy/rdiff-backup-fs
>>>
>>> Your help ensures fixes are forwarded upstream with periodic releases of
>>> rdiff-backup-fs.
>>>
>>> There is a new PR from downstream:https://github.com/rdiff-backup/ 
>>> rdiff-backup-fs/pulls
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Syed Shahrukh Hussain.
>>> -- 
>>> OSS Revival
>>> Empowering open-source, one project at a time.
>>> *https://ossrevival.org/ <https://ossrevival.org/> <https:// 
>>> ossrevival.org/>*
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Patrik Dufresne
>>> IKUS Software
>>> https://www.ikus-soft.com/
>>> 514-971-6442
>>> St-Colomban, QC J5K 1T9
>>>
> 
>