So this is similar to my last item, but different.  There are 1707
wishlist items in WNPP now.  Maybe 10% of those are ITP.

Some of these are very very old.

But most are fairly recent.  It seems to me that some kind of thing
should happen to those which are crazily old.

My suggestion is to leave alone any RFP from the past year.  But older
ones should be dealt with, I think:

Many are wontfix, usually because of license problems.  It seems to me
that such things should eventually get dropped from WNPP.

Some are supposedly programs which have in fact been packaged!

Some are programs whose upstream has vanished.

All of those should get closed.

But some are just good programs that nobody has packaged.  They should
be allowed to stay forever in WNPP, because there is no reason to
close them.

This is different from the ITA/ITP situation; there is no good reason
for an indefinite ITA/ITP, where there is a plenty good reason for an
indefinite RFP.  An RFP usually contains information that is worth
having even if it stays around for years.

This means, I think, that we need a way to track >1year RFPs, beyond
the current WNPP, to aid in cleaning out the cruft.  Perhaps once a
year each >1yr RFP should get a review to make sure upstream still
exists and the program has not been packaged with the RFP accidentally
left open.

I have no idea what this would look like, beyond the above.  As
always, automated solutions are best. :)

Thomas

And maybe added to [1], so that we can't point people there later? Is QA
responsible for editing that page?

[1] http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/unable-to-package

I recommend the confirmed tag for aging RFPs.  RfPs which are
confirmed but have seen no activity in 60 days should become
'unconfirmed' and unconfirmed RfPs younger than 120 days should
generate some noise.  Maybe they are present on DWN or maybe
devscripts wnpp-alert will email people.  Then, there's an easy way to
confirm (bts program will work fine, but we should provide a non-DD
way too, like a web page button).  That confirms interest in the RfP
and updates its timestamp (I guess).

Justin

Hi

I noticed that nothing has happened for a while on this, nevertheless
assuming it is still relevant or of interest, I have spent 30 min
cooking together a proof-of-concept perl script that can report old
RFP/ITP bugs.

When ever it finds an old bug, it prints a comma separated line
formatted like this:

$BUG_ID, $REPORT_DATE, $TAGS, $SUBJECT

Notes: It does not check if $SUBJECT contains comma's so filters should
abuse that there are only four fields to split it correctly if they care
about the subject.

I hope you find it useful.

~Niels

Hi Niels,

I think that this bug was "fixed" by a script that is run on a
regular basis and closes old RFP. See for example
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=137712#22

However, I can't find any mention of this script still running: there
are indeed old RFPs still open.

Now, looking specifically at your script, another way to list such RFPs
would be to use UDD (http://udd.debian.org/). Your script is fine, but
you might want to take a look anyway.

Lucas Nussbaum wrote:

Perhaps it was something that David ran himself (at least the email is
send from an "non-Debian" account). That would at least explain why we
cannot find anything on it still being active.

Hopefully it is faster than querying the Bug tracker via SOAP. I will
try to create a local copy of it and play with it for a bit - even if we
do find the old script, I wager I could still use the practice.



~Niels

# This five year old bug deserves some love!
owner 264774 !
thanks

Lucas Nussbaum wrote:

Hi again

Turns out that this UDD is not very hard (and vastly faster), so here
goes the UDD version - It still does not auto-close bugs though.

I did, however, have some fun creating a "create email" feature for
it[1] - though I think it would be better rewritten as a "one email per
bug" and piped to sendmail (or something like that) instead of the "CC
bomb" it is currently doing.

I am still going to send David Moreno Garza an email and ask about the
script - David may have thought of some things I forgot or did not consider.

~Niels

[1] The contents of the email is largely stolen from the original script.

Hi

I have been trying to reach "David Moreno Garza
<damog@cerdita.damog.net>", however the email is no longer valid. Doing
a little google search I am guessing that "damon@debina.org" is your new
email address. If this is not the case, please disregard this email.



There has been a long wish for a script that could assist the debian-qa
team in locating old wnpp bugs.

Lucas mentioned[1] that you used to have a script running that
automatically closes old bugs[2]. If you still have it and it is still
works, we could perhaps re-instate it and have this bug solved. Even if
it does not work any longer, it could prove useful as reference.

~Niels

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=264774#25
[2] Like this one:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=137712#22

Personally, I don't like to close automatically WNPP bugs (ITP/RFP).
Probably the best move is to retitle ITP to RFP after a certain amount
of time (like 1 year of inactivity, as used by that script) and leave
it there.

RFP should be closed if the upstream project went dead, and left open
if still alive so that perspective (new) maintainer can find it and
take over it.

my 2 cents,
Sandro

The problem here is that an open ITP sends the message that someone is
actively working on the package, which might prevent someone else (more
active) to work on the package instead. Except in some rare cases, I
don't think that it should take more than 3 months to get a package into
Debian. So retitling ITPs to RFPs after 3 or 6 months is probably
enough.

As for keeping RFPs open vs closing them, I don't really care. RFPs are
pretty useless anyway.

- Lucas

noowner 264774
thanks

Hi

I have realised that after I joined the java-team I haven't been giving
this bug any attention. I am letting it go to avoid scaring others from
taking it. :)

~Niels

Hallo,

Ich habe dir eine Mail geschickt, aber keine Antwort von dir, warum?

Eddie