Dealing with Dormant Packages: Ensuring Debian’s High Standards

Speaker: Andreas Tille

Track: Packaging, policy, and Debian infrastructure

Type: BoF (45 minutes)

Room: Méridienne

Time: Jul 14 (Mon): 14:00

Duration: 0:40

Through the Bug of the Day effort, I have noticed a significant number of packages that have not been uploaded for a long time. In most cases, the maintainer is unresponsive to ITS bug reports or other attempts to reach them. Currently, we have three main options for handling such situations:

  1. The MIA process
  2. ITS (Intent to Salvage)
  3. NMUs (Non-Maintainer Uploads)

However, these mechanisms are not always sufficient to uphold Debian’s high-quality standards. In this BoF, I want to discuss potential improvements to our approach, based on conversations during DebCamp, and explore additional strategies to better maintain package quality in Debian.

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