Re: Removing packages from Octave Forge

[Carnë Draug]

On 9 January 2014 13:40, PhilipNienhuis <address@hidden> wrote:
> The criterion of last "access"/"release", when applied to individual
> functions in some packages, would also lead to some deletions.

You're right. That's up to a package maintainer to remove stuff that
doesn't work anymore (or fix it if he can or cares about such
function).

> The video package has been cloned elsewhere; I still use the OF one (but
> with octave-3.4.3 as that's the only version I have it working with). Maybe
> the outside video pkg clone can be merged back in? (IIRC it was asked but I
> never noticed a response)

It is true. But the problem was that the video package had gone though
many changes already and that was started from the release which was
very much out of date. There was a bunch of conflicts and I don't know
how they were merged. Until now, no one bothered to make a proper
release that works. The current release can be removed until one is
made. People that use the version from the repository can continue
doing so.

On 9 January 2014 13:48, c. <address@hidden> wrote:
> In general I'm not sure that the fact that a package has not been updated 
> means
> it needs to be removed, why should it be changed if it works?

On 9 January 2014 13:40, PhilipNienhuis <address@hidden> wrote:
> As long as the packages compile and still work I'd suggest to keep them. Or
> are they in the way?

There are no tests to know if they work. A package with a bunch of m
files will always install but that doesn't mean it's in any way
usable. Same goes for something that can be compiled.

Having a bunch of packages displayed on Octave Forge, but where the
majority is useless is misleading and gives a bad impression of
Octave. What do you say of a project where more than half of its stuff
does not work? We want to be a reliable and stable piece of software,
and this gives bad reputation to the project.

I will be removing them from the web space and documentation [1]
(unless someone asks otherwise such as Carlo did for secs2d package).
All tarballs can still be downloaded as before [2].

Carnë

[1] http://octave.sourceforge.net/packages.php
[2] https://sourceforge.net/projects/octave/files/Octave Forge Packages/