[aur-general] AUR cleanup policy

[Connor Behan]

On 19/06/13 12:53 PM, Karol Blazewicz wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Xyne <xyne at archlinux.ca> wrote:
>> On 2013-06-18 13:48 +0200
>> Karol Blazewicz wrote:
>>
>>> What's the policy wrt to packages that have been submitted years ago
>>> and are neither developed upstream nor maintained in the AUR since
>>> then? Just let them be or get rid of them as they're of no use?
>>> If there're old unmaintained packages foo and foo-git, is it OK to
>>> request removing at least one of them? Which one?
>>>
>>> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/a4/
>>> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/a4-bzr/
>>>
>>> The PKGBUILD need updating but it still builds and runs so I can pick
>>> it up, update and orphan it. I don't know which filetypes does it open
>>> (.odp is not recognized) and the editor doesn't work, so you can't
>>> create a new presentation from scratch.
>>> It's man page is of no help.
>>
>> Packages should only be removed if they conflict with policy (copies of
>> official repo packages, malware, illegal packages) or if upstream is dead. Even
>> if the PKGBUILD is an ancient relic from the age of Judd in need of a complete
>> rewrite, we tend to leave them as placeholders.
> AUR lacks 'mark package as broken' feature, I guess I can leave a
> comment that says it's broken + post compile errors etc. Maybe
> somebody will post a fix ...
>
> With regard to dead upstream, do I have to Google around to see if
> they moved it somewhere or is it OK to lazily submit for deletion? I'm
> talking about orphaned packages w/o an updated PKGBUILD in the
> comments or at least a comment that says upstream moved to a different
> place.
>

I would only submit such packages for deletion if their PKGBUILDs do a
simple ./configure && make && make install. If there are non-trivial
patches, even if they are long broken, I would leave it in the AUR. When
someone comes along and says "I want to make this dead package work
again" patches that once work can be a useful starting point.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 555 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/attachments/20130619/7a9a9a34/attachment-0001.asc>