[aur-general] Proposal: Mass AUR Cleanup

[Brad Fanella]

On Sun, Oct 03, 2010 at 10:03:25PM +0300, Konstantinos Karantias wrote:
> I'm not a TU, but I don't agree. Package sources may not be updated by then,
> so the packages doesn't actually need any modifications.
> 
> In my opinion, you should examine every package in detail before deleting
> it.
> 
> (In other words, I agree with Xyne :P)
> 
> On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Xyne <xyne at archlinux.ca> wrote:
> 
> > Brad Fanella wrote:
> >
> > > On Sun, Oct 03, 2010 at 07:54:42PM +0200, Jakob Gruber wrote:
> > > >  Hi TUs,
> > > >
> > > > I've just created a new proposal concerning the orphaning of all
> > packages
> > > > marked 'out of date' which have not been updated (or submitted) since
> > before
> > > > January 1st, 2009. For details, see the actual proposal text.
> > > >
> > > > The voting period ends on October 10th, please cast your votes!
> > > >
> > > > schuay
> > >
> > > Yeah, as long as they haven't been updated for a while (as you said,
> > January 1st, 2009), then I'm all for it!
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Brad
> >
> > I've cast a "yes" vote. I also move to name this "Operation Oliver Twist"
> > and to
> > name the orphaning script "twister".
> >
> > One problem that might arise though is if a stable package (i.e. one that
> > almost never gets updated upstream) has been recently flagged out-of-date
> > then
> > it might get orphaned (a malicious user who is aware of the impending
> > operation might even write a script to flag such packages out-of-date).
> > Perhaps
> > you could cross-reference the last activity of the maintainer when deciding
> > whether to delete a package, e.g. last package action <= 2009-01-01 and
> > last
> > maintainer action <= xxxx-xx-xx.
> >
> > That shouldn't add much complexity to the code but it might improve the
> > handling of a few fringe cases. I'm really just floating the idea though.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Xyne
> >

That is a valid point. The real question: Is it worth the risk?

In my opinion, it is.

-- Brad