* Scott Kitterman <deb...@kitterman.com> [240820 14:35]: > On August 20, 2024 12:16:47 PM UTC, Andrey Rakhmatullin <w...@debian.org> > wrote: > >On Tue, Aug 20, 2024 at 12:12:33PM +0000, Scott Kitterman wrote: > >> There are people doing this, we could use more, but it does > >> happen. I've processed lots of these and it's virtually always > >> fine. In the rare case of a mistake, the cost to rectify the > >> mistake is a trip through New. > >> > >> I don't think we need more process. > > > >Oh, I'm sure it's fine both for people filing these and the FTP team, I'm > >worried about reactions from the maintainers of those packages. > > > For those cases, the people who have been doing this will > sometimes file a bug against the package as a heads up and then as > for the removal a bit later. Of course I don't ever see the ones > where the maintainer objects and nothing further comes of it, but > my impression is it's rare.
I have been trying to do this, with varying levels of success. When I tried this, my process often was: - file bug against the package in unstable, with a title of "RM? <package> <reason>". Have some text, indicating that I'll wait a month and then reassign to ftp.debian.org. The text was often ad-hoc and can certainly be improved. - Wait a month (or often more, because I did not keep track of these packages systematically) - Clone or reassign to ftp.debian.org, in the process retitling and fixing up the metadata. In more recent attempts, I tried: - file RM bug against ftp.debian.org, immediately tagged moreinfo and indicate to wait a month before untagging. - Wait a month (or often more, because I did not keep track of these packages systematically) - Untag The newer process is to me clearly superior because it's less work, and IMO has the same chance of the maintainers reacting to it. Hand-crafting bug metadata (when reassigning) for ftp.debian.org is easy to mess up, so I'd rather skip that. > [..] > For most of the packages that fall into this category, I don't think > maintainer reaction is a major issue. I don't have any numbers of how often I've attempted these, but for both versions I've heard back from one maintainer each in total. However I want to point out that often I picked packages that saw no maintainer uploads for many years (think 5 or more). I suspect that many maintainers do not actually receive bug mails at all. For the usrmerge NMUs (all with 10 day delay and nmudiff mail etc), a lot of maintainers were surprised to find out about the bug via the ACCEPT mail. Chris
