QGIS , a geospatial software , is about
to have a major release.
https://changelog.qgis.org/en/version/4.0/
I’m new to the nixos discourse, but I subscribe to full time nix podcast , (even if I don’t listen that often) and I thought the imminent release of this software offers an opportunity to ask about how a software that’s built on Debian/Ubuntu gets 'ported’ (to borrow a BSD term) to nixpkgs ?
Are there committees of maintainers or something ?
You can see the list of maintainers for any package in the nixos.org package search: qgis.
Some software doesn’t have any (NixOS) maintainers, and those packages are updated whenever a kind soul notices and pushes an update (sometimes the kind soul is one of our automation tools).
qgis, fortunately, is well staffed with maintainers, and you can ping any of them if you have an issue with the package or its update schedule.
(Anyone with the desire to stay on top of a package’s issues can become a maintainer; it’s just a PR away, if you follow these instructions.)