Re: [gentoo-dev] Packages up for grabs due to retirement

[Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org>]

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On 01/03/2017 06:31 AM, M. J. Everitt wrote:
> On 03/01/17 11:05, Michał Górny wrote:
>> On Tue, 3 Jan 2017 16:00:52 +0700 (+07)
>> grozin@gentoo.org wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 2 Jan 2017, Brian Evans wrote:
>>>> IMO, this one should be given last-rites as upstream is dead and it
>>>> heavily depends on wireless-tools and WEXT.  
>>> I use it on 2 notebooks. It works fine, and is (from my point of view) the 
>>> most convenient tool to control ethernet and wifi connections on a 
>>> notebook. Why lastrite it when it works?
>> This is the Gentoo Way™. Having a working software is not a goal.
>> Gentoo focuses on the best bleeding edge experience and therefore
>> highly relies on software packages that are under active development
>> and require active maintenance. The packages in early stages of
>> development are especially interesting since they can supply users
>> and developers with variety of interesting bugs and unpredictable
>> issues.
>>
> From your response I infer the following, please discuss:
> 1) "working software is not a goal" .. so we can have a tree full of
> broken and/or unstable packages. What is the point of any QA/CI system
> if this is applicable?
> 2) "require active maintainance" .. by whom exactly? Where are the flood
> of keen developers bringing their bleeding edge code (with their
> ludicrous packaging requirements and language demands) to Gentoo?
> 3) "interesting bugs and unpredictable isssue" .. WTF?
> 
> Michal .. are you (once again...) High .. or is your email (once again)
> so soaked in sarcasm we can't tell any useful content from the complete
> drivel ...
> 
Maybe I'm weird but I thought it was funny...

I'm in favor of keeping software around until it breaks. When there's a
non-existent upstream and nobody's willing to take up the helm
themselves, it's a clear indication that it's in danger of being
treecleaned. In some cases that's good; some packages get left behind
and never updated, CVEs get released, nobody cares about the package and
it sits masked for a while. Those are the packages we should consider
for treecleaning, not just "oh it's been 2 years since a release" or
"upstream website troubles".

On the latter count, does anyone attempt to reach upstream before
suggesting we get rid of the package(s)? Is there not some forum we can
use to reach users who may be interested in proxy-maintaining it? This
discussion makes me wonder if we need (more) formal guidelines for
treecleaning. I think we've got a few people who are eager to clean the
tree -- and their goal is admirable -- but until we can get metrics on
who's using what, it's hard to say how much damage removing a package
will do for users. A thread on gentoo-user re: lastrites might not be a
bad idea.

Thanks for the laugh Michał. :)

-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
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