Additional package flag for general/PKGBUILD issues (similar to the out-of-date flag)
Checklist
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I have summed up the feature in concise words in the Summary section. -
I have completely described the feature in the Description section. -
I have completed the Blockers section.
Summary
A feature request to add a package flag for general/PKGBUILD issues. It would serve two purposes: as an official notification to package maintainers that the package needs looking into and also as a quick (publicly available) indication of package's health, similar to the out-of-date flag.
Description
There are cases of noticeable general issues with packages and also more serious PKGBUILD issues that can prevent package building or installation:
- (re)moved source(s)
- missing or wrong info in PKGBUILD
- new conflicts in repositories/AUR not yet incorporated into PKGBUILD
- new checksum(s) due to repacking at source
- outdated build procedure
- broken
pkgver()
, a rather common issue - wrong package name/prefix or suffix (
-git
,-svn
,-bin
, etc.)
These issues are solved by package maintainers, but there is currently no dedicated/official/universal/reliable way to notify maintainer(s) and also users, like in the case of outdated packages where a flag is shown publicly. Package Requests are a bit harsh method for these issues, possibly only deletion request for improperly named packages is justifiable.
AUR comments are a very useful tool, but are often not a quick indication of package health status. They are also not the best tool to notify maintainers from my experience. Direct contact is somewhat reliable if PKGBUILD contains contact information and if it's not outdated, but directing users to offsite communication is throwing package health information away.
A possible solution is an additional flag that indicated packages with (PKGBUILD) issues, similar to the out-of-date flag (and lower its abuse). If the new flag is implemented and too much false positives are encountered in the future (due to non-savvy users, bugs in helpers, etc.), there are two rather simple, but possibly efficient countermeasures. The first is for users to be able to raise the flag only when adding a new comment and the second option is to be able to toggle the flag only when adding a comment.