I basically agree that we need some form of control. However I have some reservations and comments. First, I would like to understand the usefulness of discussing and voting on this proposal first, before tackling the (IMO probably more serious issue) of having too many packages with very low popularity / usefulness in our community repo. Perhaps the former issue is easier to deal with? Or could serve as a basis for dealing with the latter one? Now to the specific points of the proposal:
* Only "popular" packages may enter the repo, as defined by 1% usage from pkgstats or 10 votes on the AUR.
Allan, can you develop a bit more what is your criterion for the figures 1% or 10 votes. Why not 5% or 3 votes? (which in my humble opinion would seem to make more sense...)
* Any additions not covered by the above criteria must first be proposed on the aur-general mailing list, explaining the reason for the exemption (e.g. renamed package, new package) at which point a general consensus from the TUs will be reached. TUs with large numbers of "non-popular" packages are more likely to be rejected.
What should a "general consensus" look like? If 5 TUs are for and 3 are against and the remaining ones do not reply, do we say yes or no? Can we be more specific on the above point without burdening the procedure with bureaucratic rules?
Stefan Hussmann wrote:
Some thoughts. - If we encourage people to drop packages that are not popular, we should also encourage them to take packages in "usupported" that _are_ popular to "community".
That would be the idea.
I have examined the repos extra, community and unsupported quite carefully, and as a result I do not think there are that many packages in unsupported that really deserve being in community! Possible candidates are yaourt, etc: but only if wain would become a TU AND if we think it is a good idea to support that very popular tool (not sure personally – also it is only a script, so easy to install). aurup nspluginwrapper-flash + dependencies > well, these are no longer required I believe splashy wine-doors songbird <enemy-territory, warsow, openarena etc. : if TUs are interested> uswsusp customizepkg pactools archassistant vlc-plugin fbsplash Otherwise, I would rather VERY MUCH encourage TUs to have a look at the packages in EXTRA that are currently orphaned, and to contact the devs if you are interested to maintain some of them in community. There are many more important packages there that would deserve to be maintained in community than being orphaned in extra. That's it for now. F