Bug#732570: libarch-perl should be removed

[Axel Beckert]

Hi Adrian,

Adrian Bunk wrote:
> first of all, please Cc the submitter when answering to him

My answer was not to specific to the submitter but to the bug report
and the discussion in general so that others have data to make up
their own opinion. (Otherwise I likely would have written "Hi Adrian"
at the start of the mail.) The fact that I think that libarch-perl/tla
should not be removed (yet) is solely the result of my number digging.
As I said I don't use tla, hence I wouldn't be affected by it's or
libarch-perl's removal.

> the BTS does *not* send a copy to the submitter except when you add
> either his email address or <bugnumber>-submitter at bugs.debian.org to
> the Cc.

I know. Actually the BTS doesn't send a mail to the submitter if I add
his email address to the Cc either (but my MUA does). But that's
nitpicking, I know. :-)

> http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=git-arch
> git suggests git-arch, and git-all depends on git-arch.
> git-arch depends on tla.
> 
> That explains the increasing number of people who have tla installed.

The "Suggests" does IMHO not explain it, because suggests are not
installed by default. But the dependency chain starting at git-all
sounds promising. Unfortunately plain popcon shows no evidence for
that:

http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=git-all%2Cgit-arch%2Ctla&show_installed=on&show_vote=on&want_legend=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1

The steepness of tla's installed-curve does not change at all when the
git-all package was introduced in 2010.

There is a bump in tla installations when git-arch was introduced, but
I don't see more commonalities besides one short bump in mid-2013,
which seems to be a general bump in popcon submissions as it can also
be seen in the installed-graph for e.g. dpkg.

So let's use percentage instead:

http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=git-all%2Cgit-arch%2Ctla%2Clibarch-perl&show_installed=on&want_percent=on&want_legend=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1

(I should have done this earlier. IIRC someone on #debian-perl suggested
it.)

Now that looks way more interesting and less bumpy:

* There's indeed a steep decrease of tla and libarch-perl
  installations in 2006/2007. So yes, tla seems no more a popular VCS.
  But there are still remarkably more tla installations than e.g.
  git-all or git-arch installations.

* There's now also a very thin bump visibile by the introduction of
  the git-all package.

So I don't think git-all and git-arch have that much impact on tla
installations despite the reasoning sounded promising.

> And I do therefore also doubt that there is any value left in 
> libarch-perl.

I'm still not convinced since there are currently still a few votes
despite the descreasing popcon (in absolute numbers as well as in
percentage) which seem to be around 10% of the highest peak. IMHO
that's quite some "value left". (And yes, "left" fits. :-)

> If that doesn't convince you, please follow the advice I gave when 
> reporting this bug:
>   Feel free to close this bug if you disagree.

No, I'd rather like to hear some opinions by others.

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
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