Question on the process of packge withdrawal

[Sharlatan Hellseher]

Hi Guix!

  I've noticed a tendency in core-updates and staging of withdrawing old
  packages, packages which were created from forks in the past or
  packages failing to build due to increased complexity of the package.

  If we check
  
<https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=core-updates&id=409ce1d939bc3b100e5965d2b4e17cb1f93bcac7>
  commit removing jrnl variable which has it's source pointing to
  <https://github.com/maebert/jrnl> which is an old fork of original
  active project <https://github.com/jrnl-org/jrnl>.

  Other example
  
<https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=ba17b160ed7d09ef58183c22b6f1b10ee7ba926d>
  the reason it's not updated at <http://www.catb.org/~esr/> -
  development was moved to <https://gitlab.com/esr/reposurgeon>.

  That tendency concerns me as a packager it's not clear for me which
  criterias were used to make a division to withdraw the package(s). The
  age of project is not always a good measure for example example,
  [Common Lisp] ecosystem has quite ancient packages (5-8y old of not
  touched since the last commit) but still in active use (check
  [pgloader])

  It's an open discussion to drag some attention to this case and
  compile some common seance checklist before removing package from Guix
  ecosystem. From my experience it's sometimes hard to have new package
  to be included :).

  Thanks, Oleg

--
… наш разум - превосходная объяснительная машина которая способна
найти смысл почти в чем угодно, истолковать любой феномен, но
совершенно не в состоянии принять мысль о непредсказуемости.