3 ms·

Debian Developers Figuring Out Plan for Removing More Unmaintained Packages

• hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  When consumer culture infects engineering, it leads to pointless effort when security isn't an issue but the motivation is instead "new and shiny" rather than "it works but doesn't suffer from continual churn of minimal value, code bloat, the risks of large code changes for new features, or the churn of radical rewrites". Code that works now doesn't magically cease to work at any point in the future due to lack of "maintenance"; it's only when the assumption that all off its dependencies and tools must break it by design leads to an artificial need for maintenance. It's really a jobs program without adding significant new value.
  • wrp 2y ago
    I think your point is that packages should be removed only if they stop working, with which I agree.
    • papascrubs 2y ago
      I think there's probably a good middle ground that could be found. Maybe an "unmaintained" repo that can be activated or called ala backports. I definitely don't think things should be fully removed if working. But some sort of indicator or opt-in based on the status makes sense. "Here be dragons"