I was going through the package review and I noticed this request https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=730815. I was going to do a small review of it and noticed that the upstream version was released on 09-20-2005. I know in my opinion, and if it was me, I wouldn't submit a package that old, because most likely it will not be updated. I did a quick glance at the CVS source of the package as well and the logs stated around 6 years ago they were modified. Should I let the submitter know that it is this old or should it be closed or the age of the upstream source ignored, in which I am guessing the later is not the case.
Thanks
"NO" == Nathan Owe ndowens04@gmail.com writes:
NO> Should I let the submitter know that it is this old or should it be NO> closed or the age of the upstream source ignored, in which I am NO> guessing the later is not the case.
Well, I could certainly ask the submitter if they're aware that the code they're packaging is ancient and most likely unmaintained, and if they're willing to essentially take upon themselves the full maintenance burden. It's not anything that's against the rules, and I'd expect that they'd be aware of the status of the upstream project in any case since they've gone to the effort of packaging it.
Old code isn't guaranteed to cause problems, and plenty of really old code works just fine today.
- J<
On Thu, 18 Aug 2011 21:34:37 -0500 "Jason L Tibbitts III" tibbs@math.uh.edu wrote:
"NO" == Nathan Owe ndowens04@gmail.com writes:
NO> Should I let the submitter know that it is this old or should it NO> be closed or the age of the upstream source ignored, in which I am NO> guessing the later is not the case.
Well, I could certainly ask the submitter if they're aware that the code they're packaging is ancient and most likely unmaintained, and if they're willing to essentially take upon themselves the full maintenance burden. It's not anything that's against the rules, and I'd expect that they'd be aware of the status of the upstream project in any case since they've gone to the effort of packaging it.
Old code isn't guaranteed to cause problems, and plenty of really old code works just fine today.
- J<
Yep old code does tend to work, but also this also means that security or runtime bugs that are around won't be fixed either, atleast upstream.
"NO" == Nathan Owe ndowens04@gmail.com writes:
NO> Yep old code does tend to work, but also this also means that NO> security or runtime bugs that are around won't be fixed either, NO> atleast upstream.
Right, which is why I wrote that you should ask the submitter if they are willing to take on the full maintenance burden. Without an active upstream, they have to do that themselves.
- J<