deprecated because: Development has ceased??? Maybe development is *complete*

[Conrad J. Sabatier]

On Wed, 7 Sep 2011 08:33:08 +0200 (CEST)
linimon at freebsd.org wrote:

> portname:           german/ksteak
> description:        KDE frontend for steak, an english - german dictionary
> maintainer:         ports at FreeBSD.org
> deprecated because: Development has ceased.
> expiration date:    2011-09-01
> build errors:       none.
> overview:
> http://portsmon.FreeBSD.org/portoverview.py?category=german&portname=ksteak
> 
> 
> portname:           german/steak
> description:        An english <-> german dictionary under the GPL
> maintainer:         ports at FreeBSD.org
> deprecated because: Development has ceased.
> expiration date:    2011-09-01
> build errors:       none.
> overview:
> http://portsmon.FreeBSD.org/portoverview.py?category=german&portname=steak

Pardon my objection (I know you guys are getting slammed with a lot of
complaints lately), but...

"Development has ceased": Is that really the only reason for removing
these two ports?  There's really nothing wrong with either of them, to
the best of my knowledge, and both are very useful to me in my
correspondence with native German speakers.

"Development has ceased" just seems to be insufficient as an *automatic*
cause (excuse?) for removing a port, IMHO.  Are we saying that once a
program has reached a finished, final, stable working state, the
developer(s) should be required to continue coming up with ways of
modifying it for no good reason other than to avoid being dropped from
our ports collection?  Viewed from this perspective, doesn't that seem
just a tad unreasonable?

I mean, it's more like:

deprecated because: development is *complete* and needs no further
refinement (which is, of course, patently absurd)

This really does lead one to wonder just what exactly is motivating the
individuals leading the charge in this latest rash of ports removals.  I
realize many of the people involved in handling the ports collection
are seasoned, experienced FreeBSD veterans, but this almost feels as if
some new, overly eager intern has just recently been turned loose on the
ports collection and, drunk on their newly acquired power, is just
madly and capriciously "slashing-and-burning" with wild abandon.

If having a maintainer for these two ports might spare them from the
executioner's ax, I'll be happy to add them to my existing list of
responsibilities.

Thank you.

-- 
Conrad J. Sabatier
conrads at cox.net