[Haskell-cafe] Unmaintained packages and hackage upload rights

[Clark Gaebel]

There could be an email made to the relevant mailing lists during a
takeover attempt. That way we get human visibility, human "veto power" if
the email goes to libraries@, and automation when there are no objections.


On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 12:09 PM, Carter Schonwald <
carter.schonwald at gmail.com> wrote:

> Agreed.  It should not be automatic.  There should be lots of human
> visible interaction publicly going on.
>
>
> On Friday, January 31, 2014, Daniil Frumin <difrumin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I have a problem with the 4th step. What if maintainer is unreachable,
>> but the updated version of the package is broken/breaking ever
>> dependency? What if there are several replacements awaiting?
>>
>> I personally think that problem we are facing is not technical, but a
>> social one. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer trustees to the
>> automatic mechanism.
>>
>> I understand that Roman may have been really irritated by the whole
>> process - but on the other hand, do we really need/want the process of
>> overtaking packages to be easy? I strongly align with Gershom's
>> position. We should make the process more transparent and visible. In
>> order to put my money where my mouth is,  I created a wiki page that
>> (hopefully) describes the process of taking over a package:
>> http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Taking_over_a_package
>> You are strongly encouraged to edit that page and give more details
>> (especially given my far from perfect English)
>>
>> Maybe it is a good idea to have links to that wiki article on every
>> package page on Hackage?
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 8:44 PM, Carter Schonwald
>> <carter.schonwald at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Problem: no one is really actively working on hackage-server.  Are you
>> > volunteering? :-)
>> >
>> >
>> > On Friday, January 31, 2014, Clark Gaebel <cgaebel at uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> We could actually partially automate this:
>> >>
>> >> 1) Package maintainership switch is submitted online, with a new
>> >> replacement package, and perhaps a message.
>> >> 2) An email is sent to the maintainer with a link to either:
>> >>        - delete the replacement package
>> >>        - allow one-time upload
>> >>        - permanently add the uploader as a maintainer
>> >>        - permanently switch maintaners to the uploader
>> >> 3) While the package is in this limbo state waiting for a response from
>> >> the maintainer, put a link to the package at the bottom of the hackage
>> page
>> >> in a new "suggested replacements" section. In this section, each
>> candidate
>> >> replacement package is listed, along with its message and how long
>> it's been
>> >> waiting.
>> >> 4) After a bikeshed-long amount of time with no response from the
>> >> maintainer (I'll suggest 1 month), the package is automatically
>> updated to
>> >> the suggested version and the package uploader is added as a
>> maintainer.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 11:34 AM, Daniil Frumin <difrumin at gmail.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> I think the proposed approach is only reasonable. However, I would
>> >>> like to stress that in any case it would be better to make sure that
>> >>> we give the maintainer enough time to respond, e.g.: if the maintainer
>> >>> is unreachable for a couple of weeks at least
>> >>>
>> >>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 1:04 PM, Erik Hesselink <hesselink at gmail.com>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>> > On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 3:15 AM, Roman Cheplyaka <roma at ro-che.info>
>> >>> > wrote:
>> >>> >> * Erik de Castro Lopo <mle+hs at mega-nerd.com> [2014-01-31
>> >>> >> 09:22:36+1100]
>> >>> >>> I really can understand why you did this; I am frustrated by some
>> of
>> >>> >>> the same issues. However, I think if any significant number of
>> people
>> >>> >>> did this, the results could easily be disasterous.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Agreed. Maybe we need those disasterous results to realize that the
>> >>> >> current process is bad and come up with a better one. Or maybe it's
>> >>> >> just
>> >>> >> me, and everyone else is happy (enough) with the process, so
>> nothing
>> >>> >> will happen.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > That's a rather fatalist attitude, and also one that is not
>> warranted
>> >>> > given the replies in this thread. Let me try to be more constructive
>> >>> > instead:
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I propose to make the trustees group able to upload any package,
>> with
>> >>> > the understanding that they only do so to make packages where the
>> >>> > maintainer is unreachable compile on more compilers or with more
>> >>> > versions of dependencies. The newly uploaded version should have a
>> >>> > public repository of the forked source available and listed in the
>> >>> > cabal file. The process would then be:
>> >>> >
>> >>> > * User fixes a package, emails the maintainer.
>> >>> > * No response: User emails trustees.
>> >>> > * Trustees check the above conditions, and upload the new version.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > This is more lightweight that the process to take over
>> maintainership,
>> >>> > and it can be, because we're not trusting a random user with a
>> random
>> >>> > package. Instead, we're only trusting a fixed set of maintainers
>> and a
>> >>> > small, publicly visible change. Because of this, the waiting times
>> for
>> >>> > non-respo
>
>


-- 
Clark.

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