Howdy! As things stand, we don't explicitly say much in our rules about
whether people can remove obsolete ports after a year even without a
port maintainer's say-so. We also have circumstances where people leave
"maintainer" lines in ports that have been put into `obsolete`.
I'd like to propose the following rules:
1. There must always be a comment in a `PortGroup obsolete` Portfile
stating the date on which the port can be removed. (Ideally we'd
actually have a keyword for this so tools could find it, but a comment
works for now.) In case there isn't a comment, the date of the commit is
used.
2. Once something is `Portgroup obsolete`, it should no longer be
considered to have a maintainer. After all, there's no longer anything
being built or maintained. Thus, `maintainer` should be set to
`nomaintainer` for such files. If there's still a `maintainer` in an
`obsolete` port, that is an accident and can be ignored for purposes of
removing the port at the end of the one year timeout.
3. Setting a port `obsolete` should be considered automatic consent to
remove it in one year's time, and there should be no question that a
year is a sufficient chance to think better of it and bring it back in
some form.
4. If a subport is set `obsolete`, the usual rules about the maintainer
needing to consent to touching the Portfile should not apply for
removing said subport in a year, as the one year is (again) enough time
for them to think better on it.
Do people think these suggested rules are okay? Are there any objections?
Perry
