On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 12:51 PM Josef Miegl <josef@miegl.cz> wrote:
Although I don't have high expectations when dealing with AUR packages, it is absolutely the maintainers job to keep track of upstream updates. This mindset is probably the reason why there is so much out of date stuff on the AUR. It strikes me that a maintainer who doesn't keep track of his own packages wants to become a TU.
No, it is not, and please don't expect this of volunteers. The responsibility goes as far as security (being made aware ASAP of security issues in packages), but knowing in general when a release happens is not (and/or shouldn't be) the TU's responsibility. Most TUs do know when a release happens in at least a portion of their packages, by nature of often maintaining packages they have some working relationship with. But the flagging system is very useful in crowdsourcing the non-security-sensitive portion of package maintenance. As for being frustrated with the OOD packages on the AUR, I encourage you to make use of the flagging system yourself. It's present there as well. And if you think you can do better than the package's maintainer, ask to co-maintain it, or adopt it if it's abandoned. And in the mean time, you get to be able to download the PKGBUILD and modify it to your liking, that's the whole point of that system. If this sounds pointed, that's because I'm not amused by this idea that anyone who puts a package on the AUR should be at the service of those who download it. Arch philosophy goes above and beyond to drive in people's heads that the AUR is unsupported, to the point of rejecting any AUR helper in official packages. Expectations should be set accordingly. On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 2:16 PM alad via aur-general <aur-general@archlinux.org> wrote:
Generally, while expectations are naturally not as high as with community packages, lacking quality of PKGBUILDs in AUR remains problematic when trying to promote AUR packages to community. Due to this, a complete rewrite of the PKGBUILD is usually required, rather than making some minor adjustments.
https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/2016-October/032845.html
OT: We should maybe have the AUR lint PKGBUILDs on git push (and reject really bad ones) if we want to improve that situation. J. Leclanche