Re: Work-needing packages report for Feb 23, 2001
On Fri, Feb 23, 2001 at 09:57:22AM +0100, Marcelo E. Magallon wrote:
> >> Brian Russo <brusso@phys.hawaii.edu> writes:
>
> > Upload new packages of everything just to change the maintainer to
> > QA ?
> >
> > seems like a waste of resources, especially with the buildd's on
> > some arch's behind a lot, adding even a little more load doesnt make
> > sense.
>
> Since I take this information from the Packages file, I'm pretty sure
> this is what people are seeing, which means bug reports go to those
> maintainers and not to -qa, which happens to add yet another point to
> my seemingly ethernal problem with orphaned packages. THEY ARE NOT
> MAINTAINED.
>
> It's either that or ask for an override, which means that when and if
> the package gets adopted you have to ask for a change again, which puts
> more work on the shoulders of ftp admins. I rather put more work on
> the shoulders of a machine. What is that? That I'm going to break
> packages by doing this? That they won't autobuild anymore? See
> closing comment on previous paragraph.
Agreed that it's far from ideal (a mess).
How about the following Best Practice then:
For Orphaned WNPP packages;
After a period of 28 days they should have an upload made to set
the maintainer to Debian QA.
After a period of 180 days of being orphaned without
interruption they should be removed from the archive.
Note: less lenience should be given to
a) extremely buggy (real bugs) ||
b) non-free packages for which;
c) good free alternatives exist
d) anything extremely old (years)
For ITA'd WNPP packages;
After a period of 45 days someone should ask the adopter if he
is still going to adopt the package. If no response is received
within 15 days (60 days since ITA) the package should be
considered "orphaned" once again.
[Note: I guess this could result in some "thrash" which could
result in a package constantly shifting from O<->ITA, discretion
and judgment must come into play as always]
For ITP'd WNPP packages;
After a period of 180 days someone should ask the submitter if
he is still going to package it. If no response is received
within 20 days it should be RFP'd or closed (with discretion).
.....
RFA's and RFP's aren't quite as common I think, maybe just use
common sense for them. e.g. closing impossible RFP's, etc.
In ALL cases, discretion should be used. The goal is not to
systematically exterminate wnpp packages from the archive simply
because they're declared wnpp, but rather to have some reasonable
process of having wnpp packages slip away.
Please comment on what you think would be better lengths of time.
I am not proposing an automatic removal system, I want to emphasize
this!
But I do think that if we can all agree on guidelines for
handling WNPP packages we might be able to deal with them more
efficiently. ITA's for example, should expire. Lots of people don't
adopt things because "some other guy is doing it" when in fact he has
forgotten/abandoned it long ago.
- brian.
--
Brian Russo <brusso@phys.hawaii.edu>
Debian/GNU Linux <wolfie@debian.org> http://www.debian.org
LPSG "member" <wolfie@lpsg.org> http://www.lpsg.org
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