We should probably have a policy on now-obsolete GLEP 81 user/group packages. Plex, for example, had acct-{group,user]/plex, but Plex itself is not currently in treee. It's tempting for developers to last-rite this, but I'm not sure it actually adds anything to remove it -- and if it were removed, we would still surely have to keep it in uid-gid.txt anyway. So, we should form a specific policy on this and state it clearly. Let me know if there's one I've missed.
> We should probably have a policy on now-obsolete GLEP 81 user/group packages. I'd say this follows normal policy for package removal. So, if there are no reverse dependencies left, the package should be removed. This won't delete the users and groups from users' systems. > [...] if it were removed, we would still surely have to keep it in > uid-gid.txt anyway. As "historical", yes. Which probably means that the id will be reused at some point.
OK, I just looked at bug 769782 which seems to be a special case. If the package is expected to be readded soon, then it makes sense to keep the user and group. Not sure if a general policy could cover such individual special cases.
To be honest, I think keeping these packages would reduce potential confusion.
I think it's ok keeping them, if they maybe will be needed in future. But couldn't such packages be marked somewhow, if currently no consumers are present? So you could somehow see, if that package is in use.
Could I suggest to "update" the GID/UID for these packages with -1 like in GURU/other overlays in order to free up these that can be assigned?
(In reply to Conrad Kostecki from comment #4) > I think it's ok keeping them, if they maybe will be needed in future. > But couldn't such packages be marked somewhow, if currently no consumers are > present? So you could somehow see, if that package is in use. Maybe just masking is sufficient? (In reply to Marco Scardovi (scardracs) from comment #5) > Could I suggest to "update" the GID/UID for these packages with -1 like in > GURU/other overlays in order to free up these that can be assigned? I believe GURU is supposed to use -1 IDs anyway, and we don't need to care about overlays.
I don't quite understand why we would want to keep acct-* packages that became leaf packages for eternity? While the UID reservation should probably be kept, if the acct-* package becomes unused and is unlikely to be reinstated again, then I don't see what we gain by keeping the package(s) around. On the other hand, obsolete packages in ::gentoo seem to only cause noise and a poor user experience. For example, a user searching for jabber packages performing "eix -S jabber", may be confused by the existence of acct-user/jabber and wondering about its purpose.
