The repository has been archived upstream prematurely because it's still used. If we limit ourselves to ZODB (which I only care), there is the following dependency chain: ZEO -> zdaemon -[test]-> zc.customdoctests
There's an upstream issue: https://github.com/zopefoundation/zdaemon/issues/39 --- I am the main developer of https://lab.nexedi.com/nexedi/neoppod , which is a storage implementation for ZODB, and I am still interested in having ZODB in Debian, because I find it's an underrated database. I'd also include ZEO because it can be useful for a ZODB user and it should be cheap to have (apart from zdeamon#39). I don't want to detail here & now why I stopped my work on ZODB, and hopefully I could resume in a few months. Let's say that spending extra time on reintroducing removed packages is not encouraging. About zc.customdoctests, I must admit I have no direct interest in zdaemon and it's not me who'll help to fix #39 or fork zc.customdoctests (e.g. to adapt for new Zope namespace). So realistically, I can hardly defend it, except as long as it's not an obstacle to Debian. But for zodbpickle, it's different and I wish I reacted quickly enough to hold off its removal. Julien

