On Tue, Aug 20, 2024 at 07:28:52AM +0200, Helmut Grohne wrote: > please allow me to open a can of worms. Package removal from unstable. > Deciding when it is time to remove a package from unstable is difficult. > There may be users still and it is unclear whether keeping the package > imposes a cost. In this mail I want to argue for more aggressive package > removal and seek consensus on a way forward.
Yes please. > What does package removal cost? > > Before a package can be removed, it needs to be reviewed for reverse > dependencies and if there are any, they have to be switched to something > else or removed as well. (leaf packages are much more straightforward to remove because of this) > Human readable explanation: > * Packages in sid > * not in bookworm or trixie > * not a key package > * affected by an RC bug that has been last modified more than a year ago > * not among a few selected exceptions Makes sense, though non-leaf ones can't be processed automatically and so I'm not sure what can be done with them. If we don't want to mass-remove all of these, there are additional criteria (that I sometimes use to file manual removals) that can be added, though not all of them are possible to determine automatically: * Leaf package * A "library" (something not useful by itself) * FTBFS - these can't be binNMUed, NMUed etc. without fixing an unrelated bug first so they are in a worse condition thatn others in the context we are discussing * "Doesn't work at all" - these are not useful to users. * Orphaned > Let us assume that we agree on there being a set of packages to be > removed. What is a reasonable process? Is it ok to just file a pile of > RoQA bugs or is more warning warranted? Should we maybe use a process > similar to salvaging where there is an "ITR" (intent to remove) bug that > is reassigned to ftp after a reasonable timeout? Removing packages that aren't formally orphaned always sounds too bold to me, though it should be fine if we formalize a process (any process) for that. -- WBR, wRAR
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
