[pkg-php-pear] Bug#1093489: Useless in Debian

[David Prévot]

Hi Andreas,

On 27/02/2025 16:41, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Ping?
> 
> Am Mon, Feb 17, 2025 at 07:29:27PM +0100 schrieb Andreas Tille:
>> Hi David,
>>
>> I appreciate your attempt to clean up the set of PHP packages.  I just
>> wonder in this specific case whether the new version released less than
>> one year ago:
>>
>>    Current Release
>>    1.1.4 (stable) was released on 2024-03-10 by ashnazg
>>
>> qualifies as '“This package is not maintained” [upstream]'.

This is a direct quote from [upstream].

	upstream: https://pear.php.net/package/Net_IMAP

I’m not in favor of maintaining a package useless in Debian, especially 
without an upstream maintainer.

Seems like your request comes from a “salvaging team”. I’m only familiar 
with the salvaging process, and I fail to understand how an already team 
maintain package is eligible to a salvaging process outside of that 
team. Can you please clarify how this package is useful to you, how you 
intend to maintain this package during the next stable release life 
time, and if you intend to join the appropriate team for this package in 
order to maintain it?

Maybe the “Useless in Debian” title in this (and other) bug report(s) 
sounds pejorative and maybe a better wording could be proposed: my 
intent is to get rid of package that are not (1) used by other packages 
in Debian, i.e., as a (build-)dependency nor (2) by actual end users. 
Checking for (1) is easy, but (2), not that much. Yes, I’m aware of 
popcon, but the fact that a PEAR library package is still installed on 
systems is not really a good metric (same as a low popcon does not 
prevent a package to be actually used and useful). This package used to 
be useful in Debian, but I doubt it still is. The purpose of this bug 
report (and removal from testing) is to address this question (2), hence 
my previous questions in the previous paragraph.

If someone uses it, let’s close this bug report. If someone cares enough 
about this package and assumes the maintenance (security issues in PHP 
code is something one needs to deal with…) for the next stable release, 
even better. If it brings someone new to the team for that purpose, that 
would be great!

We’re not short on tasks, but we’re not a lot of people part of the 
team. Several [packages] could be updated to the latest upstream 
version, that may help backporting security fixes during Trixie 
lifetime. Each time there is a transition, e.g. PHP, PHPUnit, Symfony… 
there are lots of packages to fix. I’m not especially happy to waste 
time fixing packages that are not actually useful in Debian. There are 
still almost fifty packages that need to be made compatible with PHPUnit 
12 if we want to release Trixie with it, not sure that’s a reachable 
goal, but that’s where I currently spend most of my Debian time in, help 
welcome on that, really.

	packages: 
https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-php-pear%40lists.alioth.debian.org
	PHPUnit 12: 
https://qa.debian.org/excuses.php?experimental=1&package=phpunit
	https://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-php-pear/2025-February/thread.html#28091

Cheers,

taffit