#2855 Improve package orphaning process
Closed: Accepted 2 years ago by churchyard. Opened 2 years ago by kalev.

Looking at what happened in https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/2808, I can suggest two improvements to the process:

1) When processing a non-responsive package maintainer ticket, add all the affected people to CC. Right now the process is driven by filing a non-responsive maintainer ticket against a particular package, but as an end result it's often a bunch of other packages that get orphaned as a collateral. It would make sense to CC all the co-maintainers of the affected packages to the FESCo ticket.

2) When actually orphaning a package, send a heads up to $packag-owner@fedoraproject.org (or whatever the new email is, I think it's changed since I last used it).


Thanks, I think this makes sense.

wrt/ 2): I think it's $package-maintainers@ now.

is it really a big deal that all the co-maintainers will only be cc'ed on my bi-weekly orphan packages report instead of the ticket?

Yes, it can be a big deal and lead to hurt feelings (see the discussion in #fedora-admin an hour ago which is what led me to file this ticket).

The problem is that actual co-maintainers don't get any heads up for up to two weeks. And even then, it's a mass email that can be easily ignored. Instead, I think it would be better to send a direct email that says something like "We are orphaning your package" to make it clear that they are affected :)

In this specific case (darktable), it was that @germano who has been taking care of the package for years didn't get any heads up, and then a 3rd person claimed the package before @germano noticed that it had been orphaned. All of that I assume must have happened between the bi-weekly orphan packages reports.

As someone who has picked up orphaned packages that have co-maintainers, it is sometimes easy and sometimes difficult to distinguish de facto primary maintainers from co-maintainers who prefer to play a secondary role or are inactive. I don’t think I’ve hurt anyone’s feelings before, but it’s not hard to imagine how a misunderstanding could happen.

I think it’s reasonable to want highly-involved co-maintainers to get a better heads-up that the main admin role is about to be up for grabs.

I see. OK, we can probably do that somehow.

Metadata Update from @mhayden:
- Issue tagged with: meeting

2 years ago

Metadata Update from @mhayden:
- Issue untagged with: meeting

2 years ago

Metadata Update from @churchyard:
- Issue close_status updated to: Accepted
- Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)

2 years ago

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