AUR change request.

dpc · 2008-07-08 20:52:20

Packages that are marked out-of-date (or invalid) and are not updated for a long time after that (2 weeks maybe) should be automatically disowned so someone else could take over them and adopt them himself.

I think the reasons are obvious. If someone is really "owning" any pkg he should be responsible for fixing/update'ing it or just get out of the way.

Cew27 · 2008-07-08 20:59:50

2 weeks is maybe a little short

dolby · 2008-07-08 22:44:18

Yes i would vote for that happening in official repos too!

Seriously now, you are talking about this in the wrong place. Try the aur-devel mailing list.
Personally i dont like your idea.

Mr.Elendig · 2008-07-08 23:30:33

The place to post feature requests.
The place to have discussions about anything related to the aur frontend.

On topic, I can see that this might be abused or used when it should not. There might be a realy good reason for the pkgbuild to not be updated, e.g. that it won't run right on all archs, or that it's there to provide a specific version, or that the new version contains a bug and the mantainer is waiting for the next version. But, a more automated way of requesting disowning would be better imo. Maby a web form where you would fill inn the reason why etc, that in turn notified one of the aur admins, instead of having to go trough the aur mailinglist.

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2008-07-08 23:32:30)

emphire · 2008-07-09 02:36:51

Mr.Elendig wrote:

... But, a more automated way of requesting disowning would be better imo. Maby a web form where you would fill inn the reason why etc, that in turn notified one of the aur admins, instead of having to go trough the aur mailinglist.

I agree. Although it might lead to too many requests to handle though. Maybe a bug tracker type system with voting would be good. Then the admins could look at the most serious issues with the most votes.

Another simple idea:
Have a "Inactive?" button (like the "Flag out of date" button). If the button has been flagged, the maintainer has X days (maybe a month?) to come to AUR and read the posts and unflag it. After that an admin could be notified to investigate.

Allan · 2008-07-09 02:52:29

I don't like thing that automatically orphan packages because they are outdated. I have a package the apparently has been updated (according to the frontpage of its website) but no source/binary was ever posted.... That gets flagged out of date all the time. And, as Mr Elendig pointed out, if something is broken in a new release and it can't build because of our new toolchain etc, then there is good reason for it being out of date.

Anyway, we get less that one email a day to the aur-general mailing list about this. If every TU orphans their share, then it averages less than one packaged orphaned a month. Not to strenuous on the TU's...

dpc · 2008-07-09 13:26:09

They idea is so that owner has to at least unflagg out-of-date flag, not to update package without much thinking. If he couldn't find a time to write a comment why he will not update a package and unflag it in two weeks then he should be considered "out".

There are many packages in AUR that are out-of-date and there is no way to know if they are vital/forgotten. So the people like me - without being sure what is the status of the package are doing things like enhanced-ctorrentx and mess is starting.

Allan · 2008-07-09 13:32:13

Well, the maintainers email address is in the PKGBUILD. Contact them and ask what is happening. If the is no address/you get no reponse email aur-general and it will be orphaned, That is the correct rocess rather than creating redundant PKGBUILDs in the AUR.

dpc · 2008-07-09 14:15:11

Yeah. So I fixed the package for myself (because other people weren't able to) and just wanted to share my work (because I've already done it, right?) and I'm strucked by "you shall first follow the procedure" thing and waste my time chasing someone who didn't fixed this one for such a long time. Give me a break.

The whole "owner" thing is just plain wrong and unnecessary ilussion of security. It only gets in the way. But whatever. In similar situation in the future I will just do another -x package. I really don't care what do anybody consider "correct way". If you can't get the system to work efficently for user then expect disobediance.

Misfit138 · 2008-07-09 15:05:46

dpc wrote:

Yeah. So I fixed the package for myself (because other people weren't able to) and just wanted to share my work (because I've already done it, right?) and I'm strucked by "you shall first follow the procedure" thing and waste my time chasing someone who didn't fixed this one for such a long time. Give me a break.
The whole "owner" thing is just plain wrong and unnecessary ilussion of security. It only gets in the way. But whatever. In similar situation in the future I will just do another -x package. I really don't care what do anybody consider "correct way". If you can't get the system to work efficently for user then expect disobediance.

This is Arch. It is a do-it-yourself distro. The entire distro, but most specifically, the AUR in this case, is available to you free of charge and by volunteer effort. You have fixed your issue yourself, what else can we do for you?
Why not contribute something besides complaints? Be proactive, donate time to improvements for all to benefit from. Why not adopt some packages yourself, and improve the overall quality of the AUR?
Taking a stance like "I want this changed to my make my life better" does not work around here.
This type of attitude is shameful.

dpc · 2008-07-09 16:24:55

Misfit138 wrote:

This is Arch. It is a do-it-yourself distro. The entire distro, but most specifically, the AUR in this case, is available to you free of charge and by volunteer effort. You have fixed your issue yourself, what else can we do for you?
Why not contribute something besides complaints? Be proactive, donate time to improvements for all to benefit from. Why not adopt some packages yourself, and improve the overall quality of the AUR?
Taking a stance like "I want this changed to my make my life better" does not work around here.
This type of attitude is shameful.

I did adopt this package so other could benefit but I am being told what I did was wrong and I should do some strange musha-musha because the way AUR works. I am trying to by proactive so I'm narrowing a problem and trying to explain it so that I and possibly many others can "improve the overall quality of the AUR". I may sound a little bit rude, but I was trying to get my work useful in clean way and I couldn't. Then when I try to explain what is the problem I am being told that it is my who is doing it in wrong way - not the system that enforces this.

The problem is - when somone lefts a package in "owned" state but does not actively updates it (because it died in accided/installed another distro/whatever) other people will try to use this package and after seeing it is broken they will do they job manually and seeing no good possibility to fix things just silently discard their fixes.

Imagine and wikipedia article when you see simple spelling error, but instead of editing and correcting the mistake you have to write a list to original autor, subscribe to wikipedia-editors@googlegruoups, write an email about a problem, wait for feedback etc. etc. Who would care to correct it?! Wikipedia would be a collection of half-done articles with spelling errors.

That is my opinion and I've made some effort to get my point of view to you guys. Like it or not, but please note that I did something. I know Arch is full of open minded and ready for improvements people so this one will be considered. That is all I have a time for - I can't do AUR-bis and don't have an access to AUR sources.

Sorry for overreacting a bit when answering Allan. His answer is really polite I guess. (Sorry Allan ) . I'm unsubscribing from this topic because I have nothing to add and not further time left for this problem.

btartsa · 2008-07-09 16:38:54

Well said Misfit138.
We have a group of audio users that started a googlecode repo, and its working well. Package is out of date and no response? Join the group, fix it and upload it to the SVN repo. We stay current and the "system" works. Have a look here:

http://code.google.com/p/proaudio/

It may serve as an example of what you are looking for.

Misfit138 · 2008-07-09 17:29:53

dpc wrote:

I did adopt this package so other could benefit but I am being told what I did was wrong and I should do some strange musha-musha because the way AUR works. I am trying to by proactive so I'm narrowing a problem and trying to explain it so that I and possibly many others can "improve the overall quality of the AUR". I may sound a little bit rude, but I was trying to get my work useful in clean way and I couldn't.

Well, you certainly did not make any of this clear in your posts.
Glad you got it sorted out, though.

catwell · 2008-07-10 11:10:45

May I remind you that it's also possible to post a new PKGBUILD as a comment in AUR when you flag a package out of date, if you want it to be immediatly accessible ?

shining · 2008-07-10 11:45:42

dpc wrote:

Yeah. So I fixed the package for myself (because other people weren't able to) and just wanted to share my work (because I've already done it, right?) and I'm strucked by "you shall first follow the procedure" thing and waste my time chasing someone who didn't fixed this one for such a long time. Give me a break.
The whole "owner" thing is just plain wrong and unnecessary ilussion of security. It only gets in the way. But whatever. In similar situation in the future I will just do another -x package. I really don't care what do anybody consider "correct way". If you can't get the system to work efficently for user then expect disobediance.

Since you are so convinced this would be the perfect system, why don't you just start it on your own, instead of expecting others to do a major conversion of an existing system that is in place for years, is mature, and works rather well? This does not make any sense to me.
But I also find the idea interesting, and it usually works very well with wiki for documentation, so why not for pkgbuilds.
btartsa's example is great too, it indeed looks like you could use a similar system, but generalized to every packages. This should be quite easy to set up, just create a public svn repo with all pkgbuilds from AUR, and let everyone contribute. Then see if it works

Arch Linux

#1 2008-07-08 20:52:20

AUR change request.

#2 2008-07-08 20:59:50

Re: AUR change request.

#3 2008-07-08 22:44:18

Re: AUR change request.

#4 2008-07-08 23:30:33

Re: AUR change request.

#5 2008-07-09 02:36:51

Re: AUR change request.

#6 2008-07-09 02:52:29

Re: AUR change request.

#7 2008-07-09 13:26:09

Re: AUR change request.

#8 2008-07-09 13:32:13

Re: AUR change request.

#9 2008-07-09 14:15:11

Re: AUR change request.

#10 2008-07-09 15:05:46

Re: AUR change request.

#11 2008-07-09 16:24:55

Re: AUR change request.

#12 2008-07-09 16:38:54

Re: AUR change request.

#13 2008-07-09 17:29:53

Re: AUR change request.

#14 2008-07-10 11:10:45

Re: AUR change request.

#15 2008-07-10 11:45:42

Re: AUR change request.

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