Process for unmaintained apps

This document describes the process of handling apps CPE team doesn’t maintain anymore. The reason why CPE is not maintaining some apps is simple. We want to focus on the problems that are directly related to our Mission Statement and don’t maintain large amount of applications that are not related to it. Because of this we want to shrink the amount of applications we own, but don’t have capacity to maintain.

Step by step process

  1. Make it visible that the application is looking for maintainer

    Add following to the top of README for the application:

    This application is currently looking for new maintainer.

    Sent e-mail that the application is looking for maintainer to infrastructure@fedoraproject.org and devel@fedoraproject.org:

    Hi everyone,

    these applications are currently looking for a new maintainer:

    * <application 1>

    * <application 2>

    If you are interested in taking any of these applications feel free to reach us on #cpe-redhat on https://libera.chat.

    The application will be orphaned and removed from production environment if there is no maintainer for 6 months.

    Regards,

    CPE Team

  2. Stop the service on staging

    Stop the application in staging first (if there is staging instance). See if this will broke any other service. If the broken service is CPE owned application remove any ties to the application that is unmaintained (this will probably be a mini-initiative).

    If the broken application is not CPE owned, let the maintainers of the affected application known about this and warn them that the unmaintained app will be removed in 6 months if there is no new maintainer.

  3. Wait for 6 months for response

    If there is a new maintainer found during this period. Hand over the application to new maintainer together with all knowledge we have about the application. Remove the application from the process.

    Resend the e-mail from the first step each month.

  4. Stop the service on production

    Stop the application on production. At this time all the ties to any other CPE owned application should be removed.

  5. Announce the application was orphaned

    Sent e-mail that the application is no longer available to infrastructure@fedoraproject.org and devel@fedoraproject.org:

    Hi everyone,

    these applications were removed from production environment and are no longer accessible because they were without maintainer for more than 6 months:

    * <application 1>

    * <application 2>

    If you are interested in taking any of these applications feel free to reach us on #cpe-redhat on https://libera.chat.

    Regards,

    CPE Team

    If new maintainer is found after this announcement. Hand over the application to new maintainer together with all knowledge we have about the application.

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