[aur-general] Using the bug tracker to patch outdated packages (was: TU Application - blakkheim)

[Konstantin Gizdov]

On 25/08/2022 22:04, Claudia Pellegrino via aur-general wrote:
> Hi Leonidas,
> 
>> What stops you from opening bug report and submitting patches for those
>> now without being a TU? If these are in core/extras your options would
>> be the same as you have now, right?
> 
> Wait, is this actually a thing?
> 
> As a non-TU, one thing that has deterred me from using the bug tracker
> to submit patches for outdated packages is this warning:
> 
>> Do NOT report bugs when a package is just outdated, or it is in the AUR.
>> Use the 'flag out of date' link on the package page, or the Mailing List.
> 
> followed by:
> 
>> REPEAT: Do NOT report bugs for outdated packages!
> 
> and similarly, on the wiki:
> 
>> Reasons for not being a bug
>> […]
>> A package which is not-up-to-date. Use the Flag Package Out-of-Date feature on Arch's packages website.
> 
> That’s a total of three warnings. Enough for me to decide to not take
> chances. Your suggestion seems to contradict those warnings though.
> What am I missing?
I am pretty sure these are warnings to deter people from submitting bugs
with titles like "[package] Package is outdated! Please update!".

I don't believe either of these would be enforced to stop people from
patching old packages when the patch resolves functionality or security
issues.

Of course, some common sense must be applied here. For example, if
upstream released an update yesterday that includes the patch in
question, maybe it would be better to just update the package than to
add the outdated patch. But if the new release has build issues or can't
be deployed due to dependencies, etc., it's not an problem to apply a
patch in the meantime.

But again, that is if the patch is not:
-pkgver=11
+pkgver=12

and nothing else.

Just use common sense and don't be malicious. We would appreciate it.
> 
> 
> Regards
> Claudia (aka Auerhuhn)

-- 
Regards,
Konstantin

P.S. One time I got contacted over email with someone that fixed a
package of mine and managed to build a newer version, which I was
struggling with for a while.
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