On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 8:21 AM, Jim Fulton <j...@jimfulton.info> wrote:
> I suggest measuring activity by downloads, not releases. Sometimes > maintained packages are boring enough not to need releases, while many > projects depend on them. > so this is the tricky bit -- in the mypy case, it's pretty clear that many of the downloads are mistakes. maybe many of them are real use cases also -- how to know? there is no way to know! Yes, it's possible that: - someone puts something up n pypi. - that someone abandons the project. - no one picks up maintenance for the project - other people still find it useful --- many years into the future. This is the one edge-case that is the real trick. Personally, I would argue that a completely and totally abandoned project would be OK to remove from pypi (Not any time really fast). If you can't even get anyone to step and say: "sure -- I'll respond to an email once a year to keep this alive", then you really have a pretty darn dead project. The trick is how to make this process work. Maybe an apparently abandoned project gets a "might-be-abandoned" tag. Then its page geta a prominent -- "We need someone to take this over" message. Maybe even a way to pass a message off to folks that install it via pypi. If no one steps up for, say, a year or so, then it gets removed. We could even make that provisional, for another period of time, so folks trying to download it would get a message saying: This package appears to be abandoned -- if you would like adopt it, please do such and such" They key point ist hat the barrier to entry for grabbing a name on pypi is very, very low. maybe the barrier to KEEP that name should be equally low -- rather than non-existant. I think the domain name system is a fine parallel -- if you want to keep your domain name, you need to keep your registration up -- all that takes is a few bucks a year (and in this case, we wouldn't even ask for a few bucks) but you need to do SOMETHING -- you can't just abandon it and keep everyone else from using it forever. And note that it's possible for someone to put up a useful web site on a free hosting service, attach it to their domain name, and then abandon it -- sure, there may be someone out there that finds that site useful years from now -- but those are the breaks. -CHB > Jim > > On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 11:18 AM, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal > <chris.bar...@noaa.gov> wrote: > >> Though I do wonder how effective that would be in this case. For all > we know, in the case of mypy, the maintainer is simply ignoring someone > else who is trying to take the name they registered. (I get emails all the > time for people trying to get me to sign over my domain names; > > > > Domain names are a different system -- you need to maintain your > registration. > > > > PyPi names, on the other hand, are all too easy to setup, and then > > completely ignore, maybe even forget you used it. > > > > We really should have SOME way to determine if a PyPi name has been > > abandoned. Or even be proactive--PyPi names must be maintained in SOME > > way, perhaps: > > > > Push a change or update at least once a year (or some other interval). > > > > Or > > > > Respond to some sort of "do you still want this" email. At least once a > year. > > > > If neither of these occurs, then we could have a deprecation period. > > > > Details aside, as PyPi continues to grow, we really need a way to > > clear out the abandoned stuff -- the barrier to entry for creating a > > new name on PyPi is just too low. > > > > This is all too late for MyPy, but it has certainly come up before, > > and will again, more and more. > > > > -CHB > > _______________________________________________ > > Distutils-SIG maillist - Distutils-SIG@python.org > > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig > > > > -- > Jim Fulton > http://jimfulton.info > -- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception chris.bar...@noaa.gov
_______________________________________________ Distutils-SIG maillist - Distutils-SIG@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig
