do we have any prefered method to make improvements to packages whose
sources are unmaintained?  The package in question is cad/spice.  The
authors (Berkeley) no longer develop the program.  However, there are
improvements to the program available from  various sources.  For example,
there is a patch to include GNU readline support (which is a really nice
improvement).

I sort of hate to take a 3rd party program and then start adding patch
after patch to evolve the program, but at the same time I hate to miss out
on the improvements which are available.  Too bad someone hasn't made a
NetSpice or something to organize further spice development!

comments?

thanks
-Dan