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

Peter Pentchev <[email protected]> Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:04:58 +0300
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
On Fri, Jun 12, 2026 at 11:49:50AM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Hi Chris,
> 
> Am Wed, Jun 10, 2026 at 06:08:36PM +0200 schrieb Chris Hofstaedtler:
> > > > Why is the orphaning process not completed on these packages?
> > > 
> > > There is no incomplete orphaning process, the package was not supposed
> > > to be orphaned.
> > 
> > Then I don't see why this discussion exists in the first place.
> 
> I think this discussion exists because we have packages that appear to
> lack active maintenance, yet the existing processes have not resulted in
> either orphaning, salvaging, or renewed maintenance.
> 
> My proposal is simply to add another option for volunteers who are
> willing to document the situation and do the work needed to improve the
> package's maintenance situation.
> 
> People who consider orphaning or salvaging sufficient can continue to
> use those processes. Nobody would be forced to use the additional one.
> 
> What harm would such an additional, optional process actually cause?

So I think I understand where you are coming from, and I know
you mean well :) But still, I am going to give a couple of answers to
this question :)

First and foremost, it will cause confusion. At the very least, it will
be one more thing to think about when somebody looks at a package and
considers their options to make it better: should they ask for it to
be orphaned? Should they file an ITS? Or should they use the Debian
Commons thing (that still needs to be clearly defined)? What are
the differences, what are the pros and cons?

For more inexperienced Debian contributors, especially those who have
not been around long enough or simply have not followed the discussions
over the past couple of years, this may be a lot of confusion :)

Second, the additional process needs to be clearly defined first.
And from what I'm seeing in this thread, and from the way I read
the original Debian Commons thread (the one that started at
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2026/05/msg00105.html),
I really am not quite certain *how* exactly taking over a package for
Debian Commons differs from salvaging it and also adding Debian Commons
as an uploader. I sincerely, truly don't understand that.
(as noted elsewhere in this thread, including by himself, Paul Gevers's
original idea is much closer to LowNMU that to the QA team)

So... yeah. Confusion abounds :)

G'luck,
Peter

-- 
Peter Pentchev  [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
PGP key:        https://www.ringlet.net/roam/roam.key.asc
Key fingerprint 2EE7 A7A5 17FC 124C F115  C354 651E EFB0 2527 DF13
signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, 833 B)