[arch-general] Fwd: A plea for communication from Arch devs & maintainers

[Christopher W.]

On Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 9:33 PM, mar77i via arch-general <arch-general at lists.archlinux.org> wrote:
>
> Where can I post updated PKGBUILDs for review and addition to testing in order to help?

Nowhere. Arch does not allow users to submit updates via the bug tracker. If they did, and actually accepted them, I think the outdated package problem wouldn't be quite as bad as it is now.

As someone mentioned elsewhere, throwing more TUs at the problem probably won't fix it: They can only commit to the community repo, and many things in core / extra are seemingly abandoned. A broader problem is that the project has lost several long-time devs in the last couple years and the burden of dropping off their hundreds of packages seems to be too much for the current team. Politics is also a factor and some people are afraid to "step on others' toes" by updating their packages for them.

I've maintained a lot of local package updates for security fixes where the maintainer went missing or ignored emails about it. Unfortunately this seems to be a requirement for anyone wanting an up-to-date Arch system these days.