Re: mass-removing packages that missed both jessie and stretch?

[Andreas Beckmann <anbe@debian.org>]

On 2017-07-20 12:07, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 11:29:50PM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
>> It is becoming increasingly painful to do QA work due to the number of
>> packages in unstable that have been completely broken for a long time.
>  
> indeed.
> 
>> So, I propose that we remove from the archive all packages that:
>>   were in unstable at the time of the jessie freeze
>> AND
>>   were not in jessie at the time of the release
>> AND
>>   where in unstable at the time of the stretch freeze
>> AND
>>   where not in stretch at the time of the release
>> AND
>>   are still not in testing
>> AND
>>   were not uploaded over the last 6 months
>>
>>
>> I propose the following process:
>> - I would file a bug against each of those packages, asking whether it
>>   should be removed, and stating that the bug should be closed if the
>>   package should stay in Debian.
>> - after a month, I would reassign/retitle the bugs that are still open
>>   to ftp.debian.org to request the package removal.
>>
>> I don't plan to argue: if someone cares enough about the package to
>> close the bug, so be it.
>  
> I'm totally in favor of this plan. A simple mail will except packages from
> removal plus even if it happened, it's trivial to reintroduce them via reuploading
> from snapshot.d.o.

Sounds like a very good plan. This will hopefully also reduce piuparts
problems in "cruft" packages, especially if they have outdated binary
packages on some platforms.

We should continue to do this after future releases - perhaps targetting
for the removals to be performed three months after a release.


Andreas