Re: What to do about unmaintained ELPA packages

[Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>]

On 30.05.2022 00:34, Philip Kaludercic wrote:
> There are some popular packages on GNU ELPA (and I expect NonGNU ELPA)
> that are practically unmaintained.  One example would be Yasnippet that
> has been gathering issues and pull requests on GitHub, mostly without
> any comments whatsoever.  For example, see
> https://github.com/joaotavora/yasnippet/issues.  Does anyone know of any
> other packages of this kind?

Talking about yasnippet in particular, it more in the "stable" rather 
than "bitrotten" category, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Or definitely not resort to measures like removing the reference to the 
upstream.

> I'd like to ask, if there some point at which should one should go from
> regarding packages like these from "de facto unmaintained" to "actually
> abandoned"?  Perhaps if there was no real activity for over a year,
> despite constant contributions?  Would it make sense to call for anyone
> new to take over maintaining the package?  Or depending on how long the
> package has been unmaintained, how popular the package is, how much
> effort it would take to apply the changes one could modify the package
> in elpa.git/nongnu.git and inform the maintainers that if they decide to
> start working on the package again, that there are downstream changes
> that they should look at.

Personally, carrying over the development on ELPA would seem 
counter-productive. Both due to the reduced potential community of 
contributors and reporters, and because of the wealth of reports, 
discussions and docs that reside at the currently dormant upstream. 
Kinda passive-aggressive, too.

I think the best step right now would be to try to contact Noah and ask 
to share commit access. And if not Noah, then Joao -- he's definitely 
still around.