Few ideas for AUR, what you think?

Bob Day · 2007-04-12 07:56:17

AUR has some packages without a maintainer (orphans). This can have various reasons, for instance that the maintainer lost interest or has no time to do it anymore or whatever other reason. Now orphaned packages (with a working PKGBUILD) isn't really a bad thing, especially when the program is not under development anymore. In that case I would suggest to change the maintainer from `orphan` to for instance `dev. ended` for hopefully obvious reasons.

Another nice option perhaps would be to keep track of the official release date of a program. If the official release date is from a long time ago, the development of the program might also be considered as stopped.

As a last idea it might be nice to create besides `orphan` and `dev. stopped` a new name called `missing` (or perhaps a new category called `missing` instead). Where people (without the skills to create PKGBUILDs) can submit new programs that are currently missing in AUR for others to pick it up.

Manifold · 2007-04-12 08:52:41

Can I add that we need a password/account name retrieval system too?

Also, it would be good to differentiate between a 'vote' and a 'comment/bug'. Vote implies that you think the package is good, whereas comment may be just a method of reporting bugs.

I suggest also that the comment system be extended to the normal Arch Linux package website.

patroclo7 · 2007-04-12 09:34:42

I agree with most of the above suggestions. However, I do not think that a package, whose development has been abandoned, does not need a maintainer in the AUR for this very reason. In fact, a PKGBUILD should be maintained also when no new upstream version is on the road: a packaging problem could be discovered, or the PKGBUILD could need to be refreshed due to changes in PKGBUILDs syntax (this is going to happen when pacman3 goes to current with the 'arch' field). Thus, I think that it is wise to adopt also apps which are not developed anymore. May be that they could be marked as 'orphaned-dev.ended', in order to say that they need to be adopted, but this need is somewhat a low priority.

Bob Day · 2007-04-12 09:46:57

patroclo7, sure orphaned packages is never desired. I thought about the case that due to changes in arch linux packages can break. Although didn't think about a combined mark `orphaned-dev. ended` as you suggested....good point.

Snowman · 2007-04-12 20:03:18

I think that these suggestions are unecessary and that they just complicate things. If nobody want to maintain a certain orphan, the fact that it's developpement has stopped won't make it more "adoptable". In fact, it might do the opposite because if it stops working with the newest libs, you can't expect a new release to fix it. You need to make a patch.

The "missing" name is not necessary. There's already a forum section to make request and the ML/IRC can also be used. Maybe a list in the wiki would be better.

I haven't looked at the AUR code but I have a feeling that these suggestions would be complicated to implement for almost no benefit.

A vote means that you use the package and would like it to go in the community repo. The quality of the PKGBUILD should not be considered as it will be fixed by the TU who'll add the package in community.

A comment is a way to contact the maintainer and users of a package. I can be a bug report, a feature request, a suggestion (i.e. use mkdir -p to create recursive directories instead of a bunch of mkdir), etc.

About comments for official package, there has been talk about that. Especially when flagging a package out-of-date. For the rest (bug report, feature request) official packages have the bug tracker.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-04-12 07:56:17

Few ideas for AUR, what you think?

#2 2007-04-12 08:52:41

Re: Few ideas for AUR, what you think?

#3 2007-04-12 09:34:42

Re: Few ideas for AUR, what you think?

#4 2007-04-12 09:46:57

Re: Few ideas for AUR, what you think?

#5 2007-04-12 20:03:18

Re: Few ideas for AUR, what you think?

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