How does a package become orphaned? (was Re: Attn maintainer: python-paramiko)

[Jon Turney]

On 02/11/2022 20:04, Libor Ukropec wrote:
> Hello Michael, Marco,
> 
> any update for paramiko and Python 3.9? I'd like to update duplicity 
> that depends on the paramiko lib and because the default Python is 3.9 I 
> hit the wall.
> 
> Also I do not see the paramiko in the GIT repositories 
> (https://www.cygwin.com/git-cygwin-packages/?a=project_list;pf=git/cygwin-packages) nor the https://cygwin.com/packages/summary/python-paramiko-src.html does not mention the GIT repo at all.
> 
> Is the package orphaned? If yes, I'd be happy to take over. (btw how 
> package becames orphaned?) I think the same case will be the python-nacl 
> and python-bcrypt

Yeah, we could probably do with a clearer policy on that. There are two 
cases:

The first is simple: A package can become orphaned by it's maintainer 
announcing that they are orphaning it, or retiring.

The second is not so clear: A package is orphaned if it's maintainer
is not responsive to queries as to if they still want to be the 
maintainer of the package.

It's undefined how many times we should ping, or how long we should wait 
for a response, but I think that the ~10 months that's elapsed here is 
more than enough!