[aur-general] Is it okay to mark broken packages out-of-date on AUR?

[Michael Trunner]

> 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 "haskell-haskcore" out-of-date, because the PKGBUILD is broken.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 about whether it's okay to flag that package out-of-date.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 that the package is *not* out-of-date, because the published version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 out-of-date just because it's broken is not alright.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 Others say that it's perfectly alright to flag that package out-of-date,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 out-of-date flag.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 Out-of-date-flags are, what the name suggests, hints that there is a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

Hi,

maybe an extra flag "broken" like "outofdate" would help.

Bye

Michael