[aur-general] AUR mass deletion, why?

[Fabian Bornschein]

Am Di, 4. Mai 2021 um 07:01:54 +0000 schrieb George Rawlinson via 
aur-general <aur-general at lists.archlinux.org>:
> On 21-05-04 08:23, Fabian Bornschein via aur-general wrote:
>>  For fcgu-keyring I have had filled a removal request, so this one 
>> was
>>  deliberate to be erased. For everything else it would be nice to 
>> know the
>>  reason for this, in case I do something essential wrong.
>> 
>>  Thank you.
> 
> Hi Fabian,
> 
> As per my previous email; while responding to your removal request, I
> had a look at your other packages and noticed that a lot of them are
> packages shipping custom configurations.
> 
> The AUR is not meant to be a repository for personal items and as 
> such,
> the packages shipping dotfiles were deleted. Please read the AUR
> submission guidelines, found here:
> 
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_submission_guidelines
> 
> --
> George Rawlinson


Hi George,
it looks like GMail doesn't like EMails. I've got the deletion 
notification but no other EMail. (Not even in spam). Strange, but back 
to topic.

Yes, many of them where preconfigurations of some sort, but not in a 
"specific for me system"-way, but kept generic so everyone can use 
them. In fact, I barely use any of them myself, but kept them up 
because someone asked me to keep them around.

Lets go through them one by one
* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/amdgpu-experimental/
Was one of the packages I was asked to keep up, because it's easy 
access to amdgpu-experimental features, while this can be a struggle to 
setup manually.

* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/archlinux-wallpapers-mixbranding/
Is a set of wallpapers. I honestly don't know why this was removed, as 
it's not even a configuration thing, but (very silly) wallpapers.

* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/blacklist-hw-watchdog/
* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/blacklist_pcspkr/

Are both module blacklist. the later one is essentially the same as 
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nobeep/ , but was uploaded in, uhm 
2017?. Not specific for my systems as I dont have any beeper. The other 
one was used by me, still not specific only for only my system.

* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/fabiscafe-keyring/
Is a pubkey, that is important to have signed packages active for our 
GNOME-unstable repo: see https://gitlab.com/fabis_cafe/gnome-unstable, 
and in future maybe also gnome-oldstable, see: 
https://gitlab.com/fabis_cafe/gnome-oldstable I dont know for sure if 
this was OK to be in the AUR, but since
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/?O=0&SeB=nd&K=keyring&outdated=&SB=n&SO=a&PP=50&do_Search=Go 
archlinuxarm,32, even chaotic-aur and a lot more are there, I never saw 
a problem with that one.

* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/preconf-cups-desktop/
Is a preconfiguration that enabled and installed printer support for 
desktops. Also not specific for me, just easy access.

* 
https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/preconf-intel-nvidia-prime-render-offloading/
Where a lot of configuration to set up prime-offloading with working 
powermanagement on newer optimus-ready systems. I actually only bought 
a GT 710 to write this package in order to help people set this up. Not 
specific for me. (because AMD ftw :D)

* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/preconf-sudo-wheel/
This just creates the sudo configuration for wheel users in 
/etc/sudoers.d. I won't lie, this was made because I'm lazy. I dont 
know if this is actually used by anyone else.

* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/systemd-boot-esp-sync/
This one syncs /boot to /efi/$machine-id either via systemd.path or via 
alpm hook. I've written this in a generic form, so others can use (and 
I know at least 2 people who use it in addition of myself).

* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/game-devices-udev/
This one adds udev rules for a lot of gaming controllers who might 
otherwise not work on your system. It's not really a preconfiguration. 
So also in here I dont understand why this was removed at all.

* https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/unlock-pacman/
This one just removes to pacman-lock at startup, in case it's there.

None of them are in my opinion really specialized or specific for me 
alone and almost all of them add something of value to a users system. 
I can't find something that preconfigurations, wallpapers, udev-rules 
or "keyrings" are not allowed on the AUR either in 
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_submission_guidelines. So I'm a 
pretty shocked by that move.