<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 8:21 AM, Jim Fulton <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jim@jimfulton.info" target="_blank">jim@jimfulton.info</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">I suggest measuring activity by downloads, not releases. Sometimes<br>
maintained packages are boring enough not to need releases, while many<br>
projects depend on them.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>so this is the tricky bit -- in the mypy case, it's pretty clear that many of the downloads are mistakes. maybe many of them are real use cases also -- how to know? there is no way to know!</div><div><br></div><div>Yes, it's possible that:</div><div><br></div><div> - someone puts something up n pypi.</div><div> - that someone abandons the project.</div><div> - no one picks up maintenance for the project</div><div> - other people still find it useful --- many years into the future.</div><div><br></div><div>This is the one edge-case that is the real trick. Personally, I would argue that a completely and totally abandoned project would be OK to remove from pypi (Not any time really fast). If you can't even get anyone to step and say: "sure -- I'll respond to an email once a year to keep this alive", then you really have a pretty darn dead project.</div><div><br></div><div>The trick is how to make this process work. Maybe an apparently abandoned project gets a "might-be-abandoned" tag. Then its page geta a prominent -- "We need someone to take this over" message. Maybe even a way to pass a message off to folks that install it via pypi. If no one steps up for, say, a year or so, then it gets removed. We could even make that provisional, for another period of time, so folks trying to download it would get a message saying:</div><div><br></div><div>This package appears to be abandoned -- if you would like adopt it, please do such and such"</div><div><br></div><div>They key point ist hat the barrier to entry for grabbing a name on pypi is very, very low. maybe the barrier to KEEP that name should be equally low -- rather than non-existant.</div><div><br></div><div>I think the domain name system is a fine parallel -- if you want to keep your domain name, you need to keep your registration up -- all that takes is a few bucks a year (and in this case, we wouldn't even ask for a few bucks) but you need to do SOMETHING -- you can't just abandon it and keep everyone else from using it forever.</div><div><br></div><div>And note that it's possible for someone to put up a useful web site on a free hosting service, attach it to their domain name, and then abandon it -- sure, there may be someone out there that finds that site useful years from now -- but those are the breaks.</div><div><br></div><div>-CHB</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Jim<br>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 11:18 AM, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal<br>
<<a href="mailto:chris.barker@noaa.gov">chris.barker@noaa.gov</a>> wrote:<br>
>> Though I do wonder how effective that would be in this case. For all we know, in the case of mypy, the maintainer is simply ignoring someone else who is trying to take the name they registered. (I get emails all the time for people trying to get me to sign over my domain names;<br>
><br>
> Domain names are a different system -- you need to maintain your registration.<br>
><br>
> PyPi names, on the other hand, are all too easy to setup, and then<br>
> completely ignore, maybe even forget you used it.<br>
><br>
> We really should have SOME way to determine if a PyPi name has been<br>
> abandoned. Or even be proactive--PyPi names must be maintained in SOME<br>
> way, perhaps:<br>
><br>
> Push a change or update at least once a year (or some other interval).<br>
><br>
> Or<br>
><br>
> Respond to some sort of "do you still want this" email. At least once a year.<br>
><br>
> If neither of these occurs, then we could have a deprecation period.<br>
><br>
> Details aside, as PyPi continues to grow, we really need a way to<br>
> clear out the abandoned stuff -- the barrier to entry for creating a<br>
> new name on PyPi is just too low.<br>
><br>
> This is all too late for MyPy, but it has certainly come up before,<br>
> and will again, more and more.<br>
><br>
> -CHB<br>
</div></div><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">> _______________________________________________<br>
> Distutils-SIG maillist - <a href="mailto:Distutils-SIG@python.org">Distutils-SIG@python.org</a><br>
> <a href="https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">--<br>
Jim Fulton<br>
<a href="http://jimfulton.info" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://jimfulton.info</a><br>
</font></span></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><br>Christopher Barker, Ph.D.<br>Oceanographer<br><br>Emergency Response Division<br>NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice<br>7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax<br>Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception<br><br><a href="mailto:Chris.Barker@noaa.gov" target="_blank">Chris.Barker@noaa.gov</a></div>
</div></div>