Orphaning Candidate packages for removal due to FTBFS, implications

[Jesse Keating]

On Mon, 2010-01-18 at 22:51 +0100, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:01:23 +0100, Tomas wrote:
> 
> > I think there should be at least two conditions which would have to be
> > fulfilled for the nagging bug to be created - the package was not
> > touched by the maintainer during recent x months and at least one bug is
> > opened not closed in the bugzilla on the package.
> 
> Taking into account bugzilla ticket statistics is much more interesting
> anyway, especially if combined with a package's FTBFS status *and* FAS
> account status *and* bugzilla account status (= password renewed and
> date of last login) *and* perhaps even scm-commit/koji-access status.
> 
> There are automated mass-rebuilds. There are provenpackagers who rebuild
> packages for SONAME bumps and even for FTBFS. Packages are touched
> regularly. But what does that tell about the package's owner and the
> package itself?
> 
> Who notices if a package has N open tickets, of which N have not seen any
> comment from the package's single maintainer in M months? With X additional
> tickets CLOSED/INSUFFICIENT_DATA at EOL because reporters didn't respond
> to the very late EOL NEEDINFO query either. How much do N, M and X grow
> before an orphan package or a non-responsive maintainer is discovered?

That's why I think it is pretty clear that we have to have two
approaches to the problem.  One approach is about the maintainer, and
when we discover a non-responsive maintainer (however long that takes)
we drop all their packages.

The other approach is driven by the package, which will pick up things
that are "owned" by somebody but they may not pay attention to it, or
even remember they own it.  That's the approach when we discover
mismaintained packages, and orphan them at the package level.

These two approaches are not mutually exclusive, and can likely use some
of the same data.

-- 
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
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