kyum is retired.

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

On 23.06.2008 20:25, Jochen Schmitt wrote:
 >
> unfortunately, the upstream author has no time to maintain the kyum
> package.
> 
> So I have to retired this package in the Fedora collection.
> 
> If anyone wnat to resurrecting this package, they have to overtake the
> upstream project from sourceforge.net
> 
> Question: What I have to do to retiring this package in EPEL?

Normally Fedora's stance afaik is: a package that is shipped once is not 
ever removed from the repos as that creates trouble for the users -- for 
example if it's removed the package remains installed and user expects 
that it is still supported.


I'd really like to avoid removing packages from the repo, but maybe this 
is one of those rare cases where removing a package from the repo sooner 
or later *might* make sense. It would need to be discussed (which didn't 
happen in the past days, but that doesn't mean people don't care).

First thoughts in that direction: there needs to be a long warning 
period for users and the whole thing needs to be communicated clearly. 
Like for example:

- when RHEL 5.3 ships move package from stable to testing; users that 
still need it badly could get it there for a while
- when RHEL 5.4 ships remove package completely from the repos
- both these cases of course would need to be announced properly and loudly

But that doesn't solve the "package remains installed" problem. Some 
other package could obsolete it, but it's considered a bad thing by a 
lot of people (and they have a point in that!).

So in the end it's just choosing the least evil thing to do. Maybe 
that's just keeping kyum in the repo; as the yum-ABI shouldn't change it 
might be the least evil and easiest thing to do as long as no security 
problem are found.

Just my 2 cent.

Cu
knurd