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

[Karol Blazewicz]

On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 10:09 PM, Carl Schaefer <schaefer at trilug.org> wrote:
>> >> 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?
>
> yes, most arch users could write a script to track this after the fact,
> but personally I like the idea of advance notification.  Perhaps a
> mailing list could be created for each repository, e.g.
>
> arch-core-notification
> arch-extra-notification,
> etc.
>
> New packages could be announced automatically.  Deletions could be
> announced a week in advance, with any discussion taking place on
> arch-general.  Maybe something like this is already going on among the
> TUs; if so, there's at least a bit of interest in making that more
> visible.
>
> Carl

Sometimes packages are split, merged or renamed too.