On Nov 21, 2011, at 1:53 PM, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson wrote:
On 11/21/2011 09:25 PM, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> Unconvincing. To "reassure ownership" periodicially won't be
sufficient.
> It would be just another button to click (like FAS password or cert
> renewal) and would not guarantee that the packages would be maintained
> properly and that tickets would be dealt with. A "sign of life" from a
> person does not imply that the person's packages are (well-)maintained.
>
Well if people want more controversial proposal of sign of live that's
relatively easier to accomplish.
Revoke that maintainers package privileges for $next-release if he does
not respond to bug reports in timely manner in GA releases and orphan
his package.
Arguable a bit drasting but at the same time far more effective clean up
process.
>>> I cant image how much resources across the project have been spent on
>>> packages that no longer are being actively maintained but have not been
>>> removed from the distribution.
> Might be true. I agree with your concerns, just not with how you'd
> like to tackle the problem.;)
I think the "soft" approach will still be more efficient then current
implemented solution.
The "hard" approach would certainly be the most efficient one and at the
same time teach packager/maintainers a thing or two against their
responsibility towards the community and least but not least towards our
end user base and arguably it might be doing the relevant maintainers a
favour as in they have not realised or have not come in terms with the
fact that they no longer have the time to maintain their package(s) and
that approach would serve as a bit of a wakeup call but as I mention
some people might find that a bit of an harsh approach to the problem.
I'm all ears for any solutions to the task at hand that you might have
up your sleeve.
JBG
This has come up nearly every release cycle. Problem is that nobody can seem to agree on
what an appropriate "sign of life" would be, no has made a serious FESCo
proposal for a contrived sign of life.
I don't think anybody disagrees (well maybe KKoffler) that unmaintained software
should be discovered and ejected from the distro, the entirety of the problem lies how to
discover (as well as side issues about what to do about maintainers that are active for
one package, but completely ignore 3 others, etc…)
So if you are serious about wanting this fixed, draft a proposal, figure out who's
going to do the coding work, and bring it to FESCo.
- jlk