Le 09/11/2009 17:30, Patrick Lauer a écrit :
Ok, here's the real problem;
"Unmaintained stuff is unmaintained"
Patrick,
Just piping in to say that dropping a package from portage isn't the end
of the world, we have a very good process for it and it has proven to be
very effective.
Dead packages should be masked :
1) it tells users that no-one among us devs really care about the
package. And it's good because we're not lying or pretending to care. I
think it's honest of us to admit that some packages are abandoned. Users
deserve to know.
2) it sends a crystal-clear message that this package is up for grabs,
either by another dev or by a user with a proxy-maintainer. This is yet
another good thing because it might encourage users to join our ranks.
3) it allows to effectively clear out cruft, and $deity knows portage is
full of it. Faster sync times, fewer security risks, etc.
So while of course we're not going to p.mask perl because its sole
maintainer has decided to stop working on it, but for _less_ _important_
packages, masking and treecleaning is a *good* thing.
And besides, the beauty of CVS is that deleted files are never really
gone, so a deleted package can be brought back from the dead in a few
minutes.
So really, don't feel obliged to touch/bump/fix all unmaintained
packages, fix those that you use and treeclean the rest. It'll be for
the best.
Cheers,
Rémi
