Abandoned Tag for extensions

therealsujitk

I feel Discuss should create a new sub-tag under Extensions called Abandoned telling other developers that the extension is available for forking and users that the extension won't be receiving future updates and they can install it at their own risk. Maybe the tag can lock the discussion?

I didn't know where else to post this, it didn't seem like this needed a new discussion.

jordanjay29

therealsujitk I didn't know where else to post this, it didn't seem like this needed a new discussion.

It did, as it was off-topic in both places you brought it up. I split it out of the Dev Blog. Not a big deal, it just belongs in its own place.

We had called the Incompatible tag Abandoned at one point, but that was confusing for some people, who weren't sure if they could continue using the extension or not. For clarity of Flarum users, we decided to rename it and make it more obvious that extensions marked this way were potentially dangerous to be installed.

While that's not always the case if a developer abandons an extension mid-release cycle, or if the extension continues to work after being abandoned (at least until a change in Flarum's future releases makes it stop), I'm not sure about adding another tag and tracking the distinction between messaging to the users and messaging to developers.

We do, as per our Extension Guidelines mark any extension incompatible if they are not updated to the latest release after 30 days past release. And we'll mark them as such if an extension author requests.

I'm willing to hear what the community thinks about another tag. Is this something necessary for developers to see what is available for them to fork, or is that sufficiently implied by the Incompatible tag right now?

therealsujitk

Right now, when an extension is marked Incompatible, it means the extension cannot be used or need not be used in the latest version of Flarum.

So, I thought maybe we could add a separate tag Abandoned which had those extensions that were no longer maintained by the owner(s) but still might be compatible with newer versions telling users that any bugs found will not be fixed (so they can install at their own risk) and telling developers that they can fork and publish their own extension.

That way, extensions that are still maintained by the owner(s) for older versions but not the latest version can be marked Incompatible. (For example, an extension that ads a feature to beta.8 is not required in beta.12 as that feature comes built-in).

And extensions that are no longer maintained and connot be or need not be used in the latest version of Flarum can me marked Abandoned and Incompatible.

Littlegolden

therealsujitk Cann't agree more!

therealsujitk

It'll be better if users post replies here (whether you would like a new tag or if it should just stay the same) rather than liking posts so that this discussion will be at the top for a while. That way more users will be able to view this discussion.

rob006

IMO marking package as abandoned on Packagist is enough. I wouldn't complicate it too much - additional labels could be handled by projects like https://flagrow.io/ or other extensions repository. Tag on forum will always be only a half-measure, so let's treat it as discussion platform and not as extensions repository.

clarkwinkelmann

rob006 I agree with that. I think Packagist already offers enough tools to mark the state of a package. You can even differentiate between packages that suggest another, and packages that are simply abandoned by the author without replacement.

I don't think it makes sense to distinguish between abandoned and incompatible here on Discuss. It is super dangerous to install an unmaintained extension, even more so if it's an unpopular one, as it's unlikely anyone else will actually find and report security issues. If a forum owner wants to take that risk, they'll do their own research independently of the incompatible tag.