Re: Orphaned packages that were not part of etch
On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 02:20:58AM +0000, Clint Adams wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 03:37:46AM +0200, Frank Lichtenheld wrote:
> > That is indeed a true statement, but I'm unsure what point you're trying
> > to make in the context of this discussion.
> >
> > Care to elaborate?
>
> Sure. The point I am trying to make is that encouraging someone to
> adopt a package when he cannot make that commitment despite the fact
> that he cares about it is counterproductive. It is better for that
> package to stay in the hands of the QA group.
>
> Looking at the bazaar package, for example, I see two important
> differences between the current status and the hypothetical situation
> if the maintainer field were set to the QA group:
>
> 1) If it were orphaned, people would whine about how it is wasting all
> manner of bits in all manner of files on all manner of media. Since
> there is a name in the maintainer field, these complaints are magically
> invalidated.
First of all my argument was never about archive space, dvd image space
or any other kind of bits. It was always about the time that people
spend on maintaining orphaned packages and how to better focus that
time on less packages.
Also I think over the last few years I think we have become better in
complaining about packages that are not orphaned but in fact appear to
be so, which is one of the reasons that the QA group now has so many
packages. What I'm trying to do now is (from my POV anyway) only the next
logical step of whining ;)
> 2) As it stands, a not-insignificant number of people who might want
> to adopt or NMU it might be reluctant to do so, because it is
> "maintained". If it is orphaned, that hindrance goes away.
True. But IME packages are either adopted very fast or noone ever gives
a shit. There are very few cases of packages that are orphaned but
none-the-less receive regular attention. AFAICT none of the packages I
proposed to remove from testing or the archive fall in the last
category.
> So from my perspective, it is better off if it were orphaned.
> Is that not your perspective?
It is true that packages that are "half-maintained" tend to fare worse
than packages that are orphaned. And the existing solutions (e.g.
LowNMU list, collab-maint repository) so far had little visible impact
to improve that. (So you're right that I should have been a bit more
specific in my suggestions to adopt the package to save it)
Collecting them in QA group without any means of distinction between
packages that noone cares about anymore and packages that some people
would like to maintain, but not commit to as a full maintainer, can't
be the answer, though. I've seen the suggestion lately somewhere on this
liast that people should leave packages orphaned but put themself in
the Uploaders field of packages they care about. Maybe that could be
a part of a working solution.
And let's not forget that this specific thread started with a discussion
about a package that ...
* ... is only used on testing/unstable systems currently
since it was never released with a stable release
* ... will not be removed from the archive but only from testing,
so it will continue to be available for testing/unstable users
Gruesse,
--
Frank Lichtenheld <djpig@debian.org>
www: http://www.djpig.de/
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