Orphaned package that need new maintainers

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This page contains instructions for working with orphan packages as specified in Policy for Orphan and Retired Packages.

Orphaning Procedure

1. If the package has co-maintainers, contact them to ask whether one of them wants to take over ownership of the package. This step is optional. If no co-maintainer can be found to take over the package, the package should be given to the "orphan" user.
   
   The current list of maintainers can be found in the "Users & Groups" tab of the setting for the package repo. The URL will look something like this — https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/PACKAGE_NAME/settings.
2. After the first step is finished, go again to the settings tab for your package's Pagure repository. Navigate down to the Give Project section and "give" the project to the new maintainer or the "orphan" user (in case no new maintainer was selected).
3. For completeness, under the Users and Groups section, remove yourself from the list as well.
4. Also reset your watch status if you do not want to be CC'ed on new package bugs.
5. If the package was given to the "orphan" user, announce on devel which package you orphaned, so that others have a chance to take over as maintainer.
6. Reassign the package's tickets to the orphan user, extras-orphan@fedoraproject.org.

Claiming Ownership of an Orphaned Package

1. Check why the package was orphaned by looking for the email to devel.
2. Announce on devel which packages you want to take over.
3. Log in to src.fedoraproject.org. On the page with the orphaned package, click the ✋ Take button in the left column. (If the option doesn't work for you, submit a ticket to the Release Engineering team, stating which package you want to claim and that this option didn't work.)
4. Reassign and claim all open bug reports for the package in Bugzilla.

Claiming Ownership of a Retired Package

If you really want to maintain a retired package, you need to be aware that if upstream is dead, fixing release critical bugs, etc becomes your responsibility. This is to ensure the high quality and standards of packaging remain for Fedora package collection. There may be additional issues with retired packages. If possible, consult with the former maintainer for more information. The process is a bit different from unorphaning a package

1. See if you can figure out why the package was retired including searching for information about orphaned packages on devel mailing list or emailing the former maintainer. You can also check dead.package in the SCM (url like: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/package_name_here/blob/rawhide/f/dead.package)
2. Announce on devel which packages you would like to become the owner of.
3. Retired Fedora packages (rawhide branch retired) require a re-review if they are retired for more than eight weeks or if there is no previous review of the package. Submit a review request (a new bugzilla ticket) and have the package approved by a reviewer as if it were new to Fedora. See the package review process for more information. To unretire a EPEL branch if the package is still in Fedora, no re-review is required.
4. Request unretirement by filing a releng ticket. Specify all branches that need to be un-retired (inlcuding "rawhide" for Rawhide, unless it is for EPEL only) and include the link to re-review. In this ticket, request that the Release Engineering team unblock the package for the releases that the package should be un-retired for. In this request, clearly specify which branches should be unblocked.
5. Restore the contents in GIT and prepare a new build and update (if necessary).

Lists of Orphan and Retired Packages

• A list of currently orphaned and/or retired packages