Re: Work-needing packages report for May 25, 2001
On Fri, 25 May 2001, Sam Couter wrote:
> wnpp@debian.org <wnpp@debian.org> wrote:
> >
> > The following packages are orphaned:
>
> [ snip ]
>
> > debauch (#74697), orphaned 223 days ago
> > Description: A malloc debugger
>
> Stupid question of the day:
>
> How long do orphaned packages survive? I ask because no one seems to want
> debauch, it's been orphaned for a long time, and there are better
> alternatives available.
According to the Popularity Contest [1] it has some (even though not many)
users (but not every user is a developer who can adopt the package).
> Should bugs be filed against ftp@debian.org to remove packages that have
> been orphaned longer than some number of days? I believe this has been done
> in the past as a once-off type of thing, but should it become an automatic
> thing with each mailout of the wnpp report?
No! Why should we remove packages only because noone is adopting them?
This doesn't mean that this package has no users. I adopted many packages
to avoid that they get removed (and I sent RFAs immediately after adopting
them) and I got mails of several users that were happy that a package they
are using wasn't removed (and many of these packages already have new
maintainers).
OTOH:
When you can tell about big problems (e.g. "cannot build from source" or
security problems) that cannot be easily resolved that's a good reason to
consider the removal of an orphaned package.
cu
Adrian
[1] http://people.debian.org/~apenwarr/popcon/results.devel.html
--
A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
-- Mahatma Ghandi
Reply to: