Removing documentation

[Torsten Zühlsdorff]

On 08.02.2016 02:18, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> On Sunday,  7 February 2016 at 12:44:32 +0100, Torsten Zühlsdorff wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>>>> You have a tool presented as "official" that hasn't had it's
>>>> original maintainer in 4 years and was only kept on life support up
>>>> until 9 months ago.
>>>
>>> Agreed, the "official" (the term used is "recommended") status is
>>> gone.  But that's a reason to fix the documentation, not remove it.
>>> As I see it, we have three choices, in increasing order of
>>> desirability:
>>>
>>> 1.  Remove all mention of portmaster.  That's what this PR recommends.
>>> 2.  Do nothing.
>>> 3.  Update the documentation to indicate the current status,
>>>       recommending alternatives if possible.
>>
>> Number 4 is missing: find a maintainer for it.
>
> Yes.  It was there in my draft, and I removed it.  It's a separate
> issue: I was asking here about what to do with documentation for used,
> but unmaintained packages.  But you make a good point: if there's a
> lapse in maintainership, and the product then becomes maintained
> again, you don't want to lose the documentation.

There is another point hidden: you don't want to lose the software itself.
At the moment i'm maintaining a greater number of software (also outside 
FreeBSD). Every one of it is abandoned but very good. Every one is 
feature complete and needs just small fixes for example when the 
compiler requires this or a bug is found. Many software get lost (and 
later reinvented with all needed maturing) because the author did not 
maintain it anymore. While i dislike this kind of work we should be 
fair: there is software which fulfill its purpose of its niche and just 
need to keep running.

Greetings,
Torsten