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


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to