status of packages

[Thorsten Alteholz <debian-med@alteholz.de>]

Hi,

I just found out that package abyss is currently not maintained within 
Debian Med but still in the svn repository. As there are currently several 
methods to mark packages no longer within svn (MOVED, README_git, 
now_managed_via_git, REMOVED_FROM_DEBIAN.readme), I would like to restart 
a previous discussion and propose a machine readable README.status file.
It should contain at least a Status:- and a Comment:-line. In case of an 
abandoned package there might be also a Reason:- and maybe an URL:-line. 
If the package is finally deleted from svn, a Revision: might be added.

For now the following values come into my mind:
Status: abandoned      <- no longer maintained in svn repository
  Reason: external     <- external maintainer
  Reason: git          <- package is now in git repository
    URL: xxx           <- new URL for that package
  Reason: removed      <- package removed from Debian
Status: active         <- this package is maintained in svn
Revision: 1234         <- Revision of svn delete command (in case someone
                          want to have a look at this old stuff)
Comment: xxxx          <- lots of interesting stuff about the package,
                          this should be the last entry

What do you think?

   Thorsten