On 01/23/2014 03:26 AM, Richard Hughes wrote:

I don't think we need to drop any packages, unless keeping that package is actually making our life harder in a significant way. What I think it's makes a lot of sense doing is -hiding- the applications that are abandonware. Users that really want some low level tool using GTK-1 already know the package name, and are likely very familiar with the command line.

The term 'hiding' conveys a wrong implication that abandonware is necessarily an embarrassment to be kept locked up in the attic. I can think of several programs that I use daily that are simple enough so that there's not much development happening to them. For example, the 'units' program, which I showed recently to some mechanical engineers who use Linux and they went 'OMG this is so cool, how come we didn't know about it even though we've been using Linux for ten years'.

I do agree with you that we need better 'truth in labeling': the most useful and attractive-looking programs should be prominently featured and super-easy to find, and the known-buggy programs should display caveats---but I think it's important that everything is easily discoverable, rather than hidden away.

In conclusion, I think the appdata idea is very good, and can do what both of us want to accomplish, with the right approach.