Rich Freeman <ri...@gentoo.org> writes:
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 9:36 AM Eddie Chapman <ed...@ehuk.net> wrote: >> in Gentoo. Have any of these 4 maintainers publicly said (anywhere) that >> they are not interested in being maintainers anymore (which is fine if >> that is the case)? We're not talking here about a lone maintainer of some >> peripheral package that's disappeared leaving an orphaned package. > > It isn't like somebody is censoring the lists or waging commit wars on > the metadata.xml/mask file. If somebody was eager to maintain it I'm > sure they'd have spoken up. > >> I'm an outsider to Gentoo development (just a heavy user for over a decade >> both personally and professionally) so I might have missed something. I >> just find it puzzling. > > I'm not puzzled by what is going on, or by your email, because it > happens basically anytime a high-profile package is treecleaned. Yes, > Gentoo is about choice, but somebody has to actually do work to make > the choices viable. There are always more people interested in using > software than maintaining it. The frustration is completely > understandable, but also kinda unavoidable. > > Repo QA standards don't mean that it has to barely work for your > specific use case. The package has to deal with compatibility issues > with stuff you don't use as well, which is why maintaining a system > package can be hard work. It is usually less of an issue for more > ordinary applications, which tend to have fewer interactions. If it > is "good enough" for you as it is, then just move it to a private > overlay and keep using it. You probably would need to override a > virtual or two as well. Or publish your work somewhere others can use > it. Yes. We value having a coherent system with decent UX and we have to choose what we can support. Users are free to override those choices in local repositories - and if they want advice on the best way to do so, they're free to ask.
