Re: [MAINTENANCE] Org orphanage?

[Jonas Bernoulli <jonas@bernoul.li>]

Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net> writes:

> What about https://github.com/flexibeast/org-vcard and
> https://github.com/nikclayton/ob-sql-mode ?

Are you saying these packages are unmaintained and asking whether they
should be moved to the orphanage?

When I feel like that about a package, I usually open an issue on the
stale upstream repository and/or send the author an email, introducing
them to the orphanage, and offering them to do some light maintenance
there.

I try to avoid implying that this is the only or best option, pointing
out that it might make more sense to give commit access to people who
have made valuable contributions in the past.  That can go along with
creating a new "organization" for that repository, to make it more
visible, that this is now a team effort, but keeping the repository
under the user account of the original author is also an option.

Only when there are no volunteers do I actually prefer moving to the
repository to the orphanage.  The name of this organization is quite
apt: if there are packages in need, we offer to help out, but it is
of course always better if they find a new permanent home.

> Also, we might want to add org-json and org-redmine to
> https://orgmode.org/worg/org-orphanage.html

Yes.

> I may miss more org-related repositories from emacsorphanage list.

As you probably have, I entered "org" and similar terms into the search
field at https://github.com/orgs/emacsorphanage/repositories and the
packages you just mentioned and the once that are already listed at
worg, is all I got.  But it is of course possible (though probably not
all that likely) that there are a few others in the orphanage that are
hiding better.

>> IMO it would be a good idea if Bastien and/or Ihor joined the
>> emacsorphanage and explicitly added themselves to these packages as
>> admins.
>>
>> I think I would have to make you owners of emacsorphanage to allow you
>> to do this and other useful things on your own.  I would happily give
>> you those rights.  You will know better than me who else should get
>> write access or even admin rights.  But I would ask you to not *delete*
>> any repositories before consulting with me.  Also, ping me after adding
>> a new repository.  How does that sound?
>
> That would make sense, yes.

Done (as you know, just a note to others who only read here).


As a side-note, the reason I don't want to delete repositories without
careful consideration, is that I want to preserve the existing issues
and pull-requests.  When a package finds a new home outside of github,
then we cannot migrate the existing issues there but they are still of
value, not least because they are mentioned in commit messages.  In the
future we might be able to migrate issues and such to other forges;
would be a shame if the data were lost by then.

(In a sense my Forge package can already be used for this.  It stores
this data in a local sqlite database, but that is intended for use by a
single, local, user.  It could be used for disaster recovery, but if the
plan is to publish the data, then it isn't the appropriate tool.)


Unmaintained packages frequently come up on Melpa, so we have documented
how we try to handle that.  A lot of what is being said there, also
applies when packages in need are brought up elsewhere.

https://github.com/melpa/melpa/wiki/Unmaintained-Packages-and-Forks.

Note in particular (picking up on a topic mentioned above):

> The new maintainer must have experience. E.g. maintains/contributes to
> an existing elisp package, has other visible community contributions,
> or can be vouched for by such a person.

When that is not the case, then it is preferable to move a package to
the orphanage, at least initially, and give the volunteer access there.
That way we maintain some control; IMO we have an obligation to do that.
We already had to make use of that control and revoke access a few times.