Re: RFC: Archived projects should explain in their readme why they were archived

On Mon, Dec 29, 2025 at 4:00 AM Christoph Cullmann <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Sunday, December 28th, 2025 at 13:06, Friedrich W. H. Kossebau <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > Am Sonntag, 28. Dezember 2025, 12:34:26 Mitteleuropäische Normalzeit
> schrieb
> > Albert Astals Cid:
> >
>
> > > I ended up in https://invent.kde.org/system/xwaylandvideobridge the
> other
> > > day and I was wondering "Why was this archived?".
> > >
>
> > > Most of our stuff gets archived because "It's old and no one cares",
> but
> > > that means that if someone cares we would not mind unarchiving it.
> > >
>
> > > Some other things (like let's say KF5 only frameworks and possibly this
> > > xwaylandvideobridge) are archived because better technologies exist.
> > >
>
> > > I think it would be good if from now on we added a small note in the
> >
>
> > readme
> >
>
> > > explaining why the project was archived and if there's possibility of
> > > unarchiving it.
> > >
>
> > > What do you think
> >
>
> >
>
> > Documenting those two things would be nice to have, ++.
> >
>
> > Instead of seeing to add that info to any existing README or README.md or
> > creating new ones, with the risk of people still missing it out (who
> reads
> > docs, even one with possibly lots of info) or potentially deleting old
> yet
> > once again still useful info while editing such README, would like to
> offer
> > an alternative:
> >
>
> > Not sure where I had come across that, but for archived projects they
> set up
> > a special branch with just a single README file, holding the basic info
> > "Archived project, for reason A. If interested to revive, do B. Etc.".
> That
> > special branch was set up as default branch.
> >
>
> > So anyone navigating to the default repo web view or doing a default repo
> > clone without further checks would be exposed to only that very README,
> so
> > could not miss the state and the info.
> >
>
> > While the old master/main branch then would not be mangled with any
> > "archived" info, like also any latest release/stable branches would not
> need
> > to be. And when someone adopts and revives the repo, they do not need to
> > undo any "Its archived info" from the docs in the min/master branch.
>
> I personally would prefer the note added just to the README.
>
> That has a lot less steps to do and undo on the admin side of GitLab.
> No default branch changing and Co.
> But that is just my 2c.
>

Default branches also don't propagate across our mirroring logic, so it
would have to be changed in two places, and then undone in two places.


>
> Greetings
> Christoph
>
> >
>
> > Cheers
> > Friedrich


Cheers,
Ben