Re: [libreplanet-discuss] The dangers of repository deletion

[Mike Gerwitz]

On Sun, Apr 03, 2016 at 08:25:42 +0200, Fabio Pesari wrote:
> But this does happen a lot. The AUR in Arch Linux sources the
> repositories directly, for example, and as you said there are some
> package managers which also do it (Go's for example).
>
> Not everyone packages their software for a distro, and there are some
> packages that if it weren't for Debian's extensive repositories, would
> likely be lost forever. There are thousands of programs which only exist
> on GitHub, SourceForge or BitBucket.

You're highlighting a distribution problem; most developers don't think
about or even care about distribution.  A solution is needed, but I
don't think preventing repo deletion is it, and I don't think education
is it either (because many really couldn't care less).  The situation
with NPM was just blatantly irresponsible (on the part of the author).

Perhaps repository hosts could create archives; many might already exist
because of forks of the repo.  The repository would no longer be listed
for the user, but when hit, could still work.  Maybe cloning the repo
could result in a warning being displayed.  It might be a useful thing
to suggest to GitHub, Gitlab, and others.

-- 
Mike Gerwitz
Free Software Hacker | GNU Maintainer & Volunteer
https://mikegerwitz.com
FSF Member #5804 | GPG Key ID: 0x8EE30EAB

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