I have thought about it again while going through all the old mails of getmail mailing list and also https://bugs.debian.org/936604 and these are my thoughts:
1) The Debian maintainers of getmail have offered to help with supporting python3 and have even submitted patches or pointed to their wip branches in github which I think were all rejected. 2) The previous Debian maintainers have also requested Charles to do the python3 development in open so that the effort is not duplicated. 3) Reading https://marc.info/?l=getmail&m=151542154628352&w=2 I am not really convinced that Charles will ever support Python3. 4) Charles says his getmail users' mailing list has been inundated with support requests. I have gone through the last 1 year history of the mailing list and could only find the last one from Michael and another one in December,2020 - https://marc.info/?l=getmail&m=160716812508287&w=2 (but more on this below) 5) Also noticed getmail user's positive experience upgrading to getmail6 at https://marc.info/?l=getmail&m=160131249528542&w=2 6) https://marc.info/?l=getmail&m=160060476624283&w=2 shows the plight of a user who tried to continue using getmail with Debin testing. I have also discussed about this issue with few other DDs and we think: 1) Since the development of getmail is not in the open it's possible that users have sent personal mail to Charles asking for support and that is really not fair if Charles receives a support request about another project. 2) Removing getmail6 is not an option as: a) getmail and getmail6 are considered as separate upstream projects. b) Debian users who are using getmail6 will be left without anything. c) I personally know a few users of getmail/getmail6 whose employer's corporate policy forbids them to install anything which is not in Debian. If getmail6 is removed then these types of users will not have anything. 3) Renaming getmail6 package is not going to help anything if the transitional package continues to link getmail with getmail6 (or whatever the renamed package is). We think the best way is to remove the transitional package which will break the link between getmail and getmail6 so that Debian users who are using getmail will not automatically be upgraded to getmail6 and they will explicitly need to install getmail6 if they want to. That should solve the problem for which Charles has opened this bug report as the users will already know that they do not have getmail and they are installing something else. I will use this bug to remove the transitional package and will also ask the release team if this can be included in the next Point Release. -- Regards Sudip
