[aur-general] Is it okay to mark broken packages out-of-date on AUR?

[Sven-Hendrik Haase]

On 14.01.2011 20:10, Stefan Husmann wrote:
> Am 14.01.2011 10:45, schrieb Peter Simons:
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> the AUR user palmfron has recently flagged the package "haskell-haskcore"
>> out-of-date, because the PKGBUILD is broken. It cannot be compiled,
>> because it depends on other packages that no longer exist:
>>
>>   http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=20383
>>
>> Now, there is disagreement among the members of the ArchHaskell team about
>> whether it's okay to flag that package out-of-date. Some argue that the
>> package is *not* out-of-date, because the published version 0.1.0.4 is the
>> latest one available, so the package cannot be updated to a newer version.
>> These people argue that flagging a package out-of-date just because it's
>> broken is not alright.
>>
>> Others say that it's perfectly alright to flag that package out-of-date,
>> because it's *broken*, so clearly the PKGBUILD does need updating to be
>> useful.
>>
>> Is there some sort of consensus among AUR maintainers how to deal with
>> that kind of situation? If an AUR package is current, so to speak, but it
>> doesn't compile, then what should be done with it?
>>
>> This issue is of some importance for us, because the 'arch-haskell' user
>> has published an approximated 500 packages on AUR that are broken, i.e.
>> these packages cannot be built because of unsatisfiable dependencies:
>>
>>   https://github.com/archhaskell/habs/issues#issue/4
>>
>> I'd appreciate any advice that you could offer.
>>
>> Take care,
>> Peter
>>
> Hello,
>
> IMHO a package that is broken deserves other kind s of love than just an 
> out-of-date flag. There should be a comment with at least some hints what
> may cause the problem.
>
> Out-of-date-flags are, what the name suggests, hints that there is a newer 
> version.
>
> But some maintainers seem to see that differently. They want a comment 
> _and_ the out-ofdate-button to be pressed, if the package is broken. Do not
> know why. To me this is annoying.
>
> Regards Stefan
That way, they show up in your overview which is handy if you get rid of
the comment mails for some reason.

-- Sven-Hendrik