On Thu, 2007-04-12 at 08:12 +0200, Steve Langasek wrote: > On Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 11:45:58PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > The maintainer appears to have lost interest in the package (last upload > > 1999). > > It's also his only package; he is probably MIA. (I seem to remember him > > being > > very angry about Debian's decision to apply the Social Contract and DFSG to > > all > > of Debian, and particularly at me for advocating it, so he may have left > > Debian deliberately.) > > No, he has not.
This maintainer has exactly one package to care for, this one, which he hasn't gotten around to uploading in more than seven years. Maybe he hasn't left Debian officially, but he is clearly not maintaining packages. > Just like all the other 10-year-old packages that have 7-year-old bugs? If > the package doesn't have any RC problems, why should it be orphaned just > because there are some older bugs? Yes. Package quality is not only measured by the number of RC bugs; a larger set of bugs can make the quality go down significantly, even if a single one would not be release critical. A non-orphaned package will, according to current practices, not have lesser important bugs fixed in NMU's, nor will someone easlily take over maintenance (it's considered "hijacking"). The current maintainer is not maintaining it in any sense of the word, so orphaning would be just as good in the worst case. But probably better: it makes it clear that a new maintainer is wanted, an interested person could step up and get the package really into shape. It also opens the package up to QA-uploads. > If anything, this looks to me like a veiled attempt to remove the > package from the archive, If you oppose *removing* packages that don't have RC-bugs, then you need to have another discussion. Orphaning clearly unmaintained packages is exactly in line with what a package in "orphaned" state is supposed to signal: "I'm unmaintained, please adopt me!". Thijs
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