Subject: [bug#74231] emacs-git-email: Guix policy for dealing with abandoned packages with active forks

From: Liam Hupfer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2024 20:45:13 -0600

Cayetano Santos via Guix-patches via <[email-masked]> writes:

> I’m just curious about whether guix has a policy concerning this kind of
> situation, before reviewing your patch (#74231), as there might have
> consequences in the most general case. Namely, it is the case of
> patching a package definition, redirecting its source url to a fork by
> the patch’s author.
>
> Is that acceptable or a risk ? Is it up to the committer to evaluate,
> once being warned ? Something more explicit ?

Changing origins is inevitable sometimes. I don’t think there’s a formal
process; it’s more of a matter of judgment on a case-by-case basis. The
[general guidelines on consensus-based decision making] certainly apply.

In this case, it seems the original maintainer has been absent for
several years, there are active requests for a fork (see [any takers for
a fork? — sourcehut lists]), and Suhail has made [substantial tidying] over
several weeks. Given these circumstances, and Suhail’s [established
presence] as a contributor, the fact that he is both the author of the
patch and the fork is not concerning to me.

So +1 from me (as a user of the Guix package) for what it’s worth.

—Liam

[general guidelines on consensus-based decision making] <https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Making-Decisions.html>

[any takers for
a fork? — sourcehut lists] <https://lists.sr.ht/~yoctocell/git-email-devel/[email-masked]%3E>

[substantial tidying] <https://codeberg.org/suhail/git-email/compare/c0211fa61289fe799cb9c83a8478736fd977793f...0.5.0>

[established
presence] <https://yhetil.org/guix/?q=f%3Asuhail>