Hi,
I agree.I believe this use of the ITS process is problematic. We’ve discussed this before, so I know you are aware of the concerns [1]. In our last exchange you indicated that you would follow the ITS procedure as intended.
Devref §5.12 clearly [0] states what salvaging is for, and its limited scope. While it might be true we have *some* packages that are more or less bitrotting, abusing this process to orphan packages or just pushing QA fixes is not what is was designed for. Personally, I think the MIA process should be improved; that is, if a package is effectively "maintained" via NMUs, and no response is received from the original maintainer, it could be orphaned easier (without the maintainers consent). However just deciding to orphaning a package without prior process while not being the maintainer feels like slight abuse of said process to me.[1] #1094788, with further discussion in private mail. I’m bringing this to debian-devel for broader input - both to verify whether my understanding is correct and to see whether others consider using the ITS process in this way (effectively as a route to orphan packages) appropriate.
I hope we can find a better solution for managing de-facto orphaned packages; until then, let's stick to established procedures.
best, werdahias PS: not subscibed, so please CC me for replies Links: [0]: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/pkgs.en.html#package-salvaging