I am against removing "dead upstream" packages, unless upstream is completely gone, i.e. there is no way to obtain necessary files. I am maintaining at least two packages with upstream long dead, but (after my patches, of course) they're still working and are used by some people.
On 19 June 2013 22:49, Connor Behan <connor.be...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 19/06/13 12:53 PM, Karol Blazewicz wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Xyne <x...@archlinux.ca> wrote: > >> On 2013-06-18 13:48 +0200 > >> Karol Blazewicz wrote: > >> > >>> What's the policy wrt to packages that have been submitted years ago > >>> and are neither developed upstream nor maintained in the AUR since > >>> then? Just let them be or get rid of them as they're of no use? > >>> If there're old unmaintained packages foo and foo-git, is it OK to > >>> request removing at least one of them? Which one? > >>> > >>> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/a4/ > >>> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/a4-bzr/ > >>> > >>> The PKGBUILD need updating but it still builds and runs so I can pick > >>> it up, update and orphan it. I don't know which filetypes does it open > >>> (.odp is not recognized) and the editor doesn't work, so you can't > >>> create a new presentation from scratch. > >>> It's man page is of no help. > >> > >> Packages should only be removed if they conflict with policy (copies of > >> official repo packages, malware, illegal packages) or if upstream is > dead. Even > >> if the PKGBUILD is an ancient relic from the age of Judd in need of a > complete > >> rewrite, we tend to leave them as placeholders. > > AUR lacks 'mark package as broken' feature, I guess I can leave a > > comment that says it's broken + post compile errors etc. Maybe > > somebody will post a fix ... > > > > With regard to dead upstream, do I have to Google around to see if > > they moved it somewhere or is it OK to lazily submit for deletion? I'm > > talking about orphaned packages w/o an updated PKGBUILD in the > > comments or at least a comment that says upstream moved to a different > > place. > > > > I would only submit such packages for deletion if their PKGBUILDs do a > simple ./configure && make && make install. If there are non-trivial > patches, even if they are long broken, I would leave it in the AUR. When > someone comes along and says "I want to make this dead package work > again" patches that once work can be a useful starting point. > > -- Pozdrawiam, Karol Woźniak aka Kenji Takahashi @ kenji.sx "Don't shoot the messenger."