[aur-requests] [PRQ#32911] Deletion Request for pycam

notify at aur.archlinux.org notify at aur.archlinux.org
Mon Feb 28 21:35:13 UTC 2022


MarsSeed [1] filed a deletion request for pycam [2]:

Orphaned Python2 and GTK2 based package, last release is from 2019.
Broken because of missing Python2-dependencies.

There is a working alternative based on Python 3 and up-to-date
dependencies:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pycam-git

Unfortunately it's hard to predict if and when a new tagged release
might happen, as this tool is not for the casual user but for at least
serious hobbyists, technicians and designers utilizing Computer Aided
Manufacturing (CAM) and CNC machining.

In order to provide a better user experience on AUR, I strongly
suggest to delete this orphaned package, as keeping it would only
serve as a trap, wasting user time figuring out that yes, the last
"stable" tagged release is indeed broken and cannot be made to work.

On the other hand, this package should not be updated to an untagged
git commit, because that's what the VCS-following pycam-git package is
for.

The latter -git package works very well, as the developer is now
employing GitHub's CI testing services which means that every commit
gets tested for errors. This leads to good general build quality,
suitable for non-mission-critical production use.

Deleting this old package also would help ease some unnecessary burden
on AUR maintainers, as this old package depends on very outdated,
10-12 year old components, and some people might feel forced to try to
revive those somehow, when in fact those broken dependencies are not
at all needed for the new -git version of this application.

Whenever there is a new stable version (which might or might not
happen in the near future), someone can easily upload a new non-git
package by copying the -git package's working PKGBUILD and adapting it
to the non-git build.

[1] https://aur.archlinux.org/account/MarsSeed/
[2] https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/pycam/


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