[arch-general] Removal of the Dasher package

[Sean Greenslade]

On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 12:48:24PM +0000, Germano Corrêa via arch-general wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I don't know if I'm in the right mailing list, so sorry if I'm in the wrong
> place...
> 
> I need to install the package Dasher, and I realized it's not anymore in
> the official repositories (it was in extra and it was removed this year). I
> don't know if I didn't searched right, because I found nothing about this
> removal. Does anyone knows why?
> 
> Of course I can download the source code and build it by myself, and that's
> what I'm doing. But I just wanted to know why they removed.
> 
> Thanks, and sorry for anything...

Typically, packages in the official repos are maintained by devs / TUs
that use the packages. Sometimes a dev stops using a package, so they
drop maintenance of it. If no other dev wants to take it, it usually
will get dropped to the AUR. I guess that didn't happen here.

Taking a peek into the SVN repos:

https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/log/?qt=grep&q=dasher

It looks like the last update to this package was 2014-07-01. Its listed
maintainer is Damir Perisa, who according to this page:

https://www.archlinux.org/people/developer-fellows/#damir

Is no longer an active Arch developer. The package got removed recently,
most likely because it no longer worked as-is and no one stepped up to
fix it.

What I would suggest is to take the old version of the package:

https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/tree/dasher/trunk?id=c819de8f05adba7ea89453c50c88c1127e5ea28a

patch it up and upload it to the AUR.

--Sean