Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

It's not the age of the code itself: it's code whose purpose is to
convert `.newsrc` files generated by Gnus from 2004 or before :-)
I think it's safe to assume that such files have long ceased to exist or to
be of any use.

Gentoo distributes ancient versions of Emacs in their repositories, and
contrived as this scenario is, it's not impossible that some perhaps all
too inquisitive amateur archaeologist should install and run such an
obsolete version of Gnus, only to succeed it with an update to Emacs 30.

But I digress.  That code isn't causing anyone harm by merely existing,
so why must it be removed?