Skip to content
New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

doc: add instructions to remove a package #116475

Merged
merged 1 commit into from
Apr 22, 2021
Merged

doc: add instructions to remove a package #116475

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
46 changes: 46 additions & 0 deletions doc/contributing/submitting-changes.chapter.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -82,6 +82,52 @@ If a security fix applies to both master and a stable release then, similar to r

Critical security fixes may by-pass the staging branches and be delivered directly to release branches such as `master` and `release-*`.

## Deprecating/removing packages {#submitting-changes-deprecating-packages}

There is currently no policy when to remove a package.

Before removing a package, one should try to find a new maintainer or fix smaller issues first.

### Steps to remove a package from Nixpkgs

We use jbidwatcher as an example for a discontinued project here.

1. Have Nixpkgs checked out locally and up to date.
1. Create a new branch for your change, e.g. `git checkout -b jbidwatcher`
1. Remove the actual package including its directory, e.g. `rm -rf pkgs/applications/misc/jbidwatcher`
1. Remove the package from the list of all packages (`pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix`).
1. Add an alias for the package name in `pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix` (There is also `pkgs/misc/vim-plugins/aliases.nix`. Package sets typically do not have aliases, so we can't add them there.)

For example in this case:
```
jbidwatcher = throw "jbidwatcher was discontinued in march 2021"; # added 2021-03-15
davidak marked this conversation as resolved.
Show resolved Hide resolved
```

The throw message should explain in short why the package was removed for users that still have it installed.

1. Test if the changes introduced any issues by running `nix-env -qaP -f . --show-trace`. It should show the list of packages without errors.
1. Commit the changes. Explain again why the package was removed. If it was declared discontinued upstream, add a link to the source.

```ShellSession
$ git add pkgs/applications/misc/jbidwatcher/default.nix pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix
$ git commit
```

Example commit message:

```
jbidwatcher: remove

project was discontinued in march 2021. the program does not work anymore because ebay changed the login.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210315205723/http://www.jbidwatcher.com/
```

1. Push changes to your GitHub fork with `git push`
davidak marked this conversation as resolved.
Show resolved Hide resolved
1. Create a pull request against Nixpkgs. Mention the package maintainer.

This is how the pull request looks like in this case: [https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/116470](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/116470)

## Pull Request Template {#submitting-changes-pull-request-template}

The pull request template helps determine what steps have been made for a contribution so far, and will help guide maintainers on the status of a change. The motivation section of the PR should include any extra details the title does not address and link any existing issues related to the pull request.
Expand Down