[arch-general] How to track packages dropped from the repos?

[Lorenzo Bandieri]

Hi list,

Sometimes packages are silently dropped from the repos. This happened
for example in the last few days with mash 0.2.0-3, which apparently I
installed as a dependency for gnome (I guess it is no longer
required). I follow arch-general, arch-dev-public and aur-general, and
as far as I know, this change wasn't announced in any of these lists.
I recall other examples in the last 2-3 years (this is roughly the
time I've used arch consistently), but now I don't remember the
packages involved.

Currently I try to keep track of these changes by running e.g. "pacman
-Qm" and "pacman -Qdt" once in a while, so it's no big deal. However,
I think it would be interesting to know from a more "official" channel
when a package is dropped and why. This would allow users to be aware
of the change and decide whether the package is still needed (and act
accordingly, e.g. if the package is dropped to AUR, one could
subscribe to comments or check for updates) or can be safely
uninstalled.

I searched without finding anything decisive (e.g. these threads [1]
[2] suggest possible workarounds in the form of scripts). I wonder if
better methods to track dropped packages exist; if not, would it be
feasible to implement a solution, e.g. a list where dropped packages
are announced, similar to "last rites" in gentoo?

Thanks for your time,

Lorenzo

[1] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=147574
[2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=125665