Re: What to do about unmaintained ELPA packages

[Akib Azmain Turja <akib@disroot.org>]

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Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

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>
>   > 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?
>
> There is no need to have a rigid rule about this, but we should have a
> rough guide to go by.  "Serious problems go unfixed for a year" sounds
> like enough reason to judge that there is a problem in maintaining
> that package.  We don't need a rule about what we do if that happens,
> but we should take note of such packages and decide what to do.

"Serious problems go unfixed for a year" - I don't think this is always
a result of maintainance problem.  It may happen that the maintainer is
unable to fix it, because either they aren't smart enough or they can't
fix it due any other problem (maybe upstream bug, or they don't own the
machine needed to reproduce and fix the problem).

>
> If a package is important enough, we might want to take action sooner
> than that.  We can fix any GNU ELPA package if we see fit.  We should
> try to discuss that with its maintainers first, but if they are
> nonresponsive, we don't have to wait to satisfy some rule.

Yeah, we can fix GNU ELPA packages, since those are part of Emacs.

But what about NonGNU ELPA packages?  I think we should try to talk with
the maintainer, and possibly send a fix if its appropiate to do so.  And
in case they aren't responding, we should add a notice like UNMAINTAINED
in the summany line.  We can also to remove the package, but I think its
not right to do so, for the user's sake.

>
> -- 
> Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
> Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
> Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
>
>
>

-- 
Akib Azmain Turja

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