Re: Bug#879296: Maintaining potentially orphaned packages in Debian Commons team

On Fri, Jun 05, 2026 at 02:30:35PM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> I'd like to propose some procedure for packages that appear to lack
> active maintenance, but where no formal orphaning has taken place.  Lets
> have a look for instance at clucene-core:
> 
>   1. High popcon[1]
>   2. Important rdepends like libreoffice-core
>   3. Maintainer was contacted in #879296, but there has been no response
>      recorded there; the last upload was nearly ten years ago
>   4. Uploader was asked about interest to become Maintainer four
>      years ago with no response[2]
>   5. Open bug with patch to solve reproducibly problem #1059805
>      requested by libreoffice maintainer with no progress since
>      nearly two years
>   6. Package was NMUed three times in a row (one 64-bit time_t,
>      others to fix RC bugs)
> 
> One possible solution to consider would be to move the package to Debian
> Commons maintenance, host it in the Debian team on Salsa, and upload the
> change with a delayed upload to allow objections. [..]

Why is the orphaning process not completed on these packages?

That's the important question needing to be answered. Everything else 
might be indicative, and probably these packages are important - but 
why is the process that we have not working?

Is this an attempt of a workaround for the orphaning?

Best,
Chris

PS: I think the time_t-64bit NMUs should not be counted for this 
purpose.