Barry deFreese wrote:
Hi folks,
I am copying the games teams since I am a "member" and am currently
focusing on orphaned or unmaintained games. In case anyone there wants
to weigh in as well.
I'm copying this to debian-multimedia as I think this general issue
affects us in the same way.
I am looking a several of the games type packages that are orphaned or
unmaintained and I am trying to understand Debian's "policy" with
regards to removal. Here are two examples: nettoe and xbattle.
What is the criteria for keeping these packages? I guess that according
to BTS they are "bug-free" but in the case of say xbattle, they are
un-developed upstream, don't seem to have much of a following (according
to popcon). Is it preferred that they stay in the archives? If so,
should I pick them up for the games team or just leave them out there as
orphaned?
<MO just="2c">
Generally speaking, it is probably best not to cover up any potential
problems and let 'natural selection' sort it out. The general thinking
being that if a package is worthwhile, someone will step up to maintain
it. Group maintenance should only be considered if there is a real
positive reason for keeping the package, in this case it would have to
be 'good' game that people actually play. The Games section currently
contains an embarrassment of riches, so it would probably benefit Debian
to be fairly ruthless in your approach. If you personally care enough
about these apps to keep them properly maintained: adopt them, but
otherwise: it is probably best to leave them out there.
</MO>
Someone recently suggested to me that using group / co-maintainance in
order to keep certain worthwhile packages out of the orphanage could be
an abuse of the system. I don't agree with that, but I'd like to open up
a little more discussion of the issue. Pointers to Policy guidelines or
explanations of actual working practice would be useful here as well as
personal feelings.
Are there any debian-multimedia packages to which this applies?
cheers,
tim
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