[Haskell-cafe] Deprecated packages on Hackage?

[Ketil Malde]

Erik de Castro Lopo <mle+hs at mega-nerd.com> writes:

> Finally, if a package is deprecated it might be usefult to have
> a reason as well so the hackage entry might say:
> 
>    Deprecated : true (replaced by package XXX)
> 
> or
> 
>    Deprecated : true (needs maintainer)

Or just Deprecated: (reason)?.  Couldn't the presence of a Deprecated
field be sufficient - the "true" seems gratuitious to me.

One could also have something like Superseeds and Superseeded-by, of
course, if that turns out to be the usual reasons for deprecation.

And in a later post:

> Well there is at least one package (network-dns) where the maintainter
> doesn't want to maintain it any more but would be happy for someone
> else to take it over.

> It would be nice if something like this could be represented in the
> package metadata.

Absence of a "Maintainer" field?  One problem is that the last
uploaded package is likely to have an active maintainer, and when the
maintainer disappears, he or she is unlikely to do a last update
changing the status.

Perhaps we could have automated emails to maintainers twice a year or
so?

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants