Policy for Orphan and Retired Packages
Orphaning and retiring packages
When Fedora maintainers do not want or are not able to maintain a package any longer, they can orphan or retire the package.
Orphan packages
In case the package is still useful for Fedora, it should be orphaned. Then other maintainers that are interested in maintaining it, can take ownership of this package.
Orphan packages remain in stable releases and are the responsibility of the collective packaging community to maintain until a new maintainer takes them on.
Maintainers considering orphaning their packages are encouraged to do it as early in the development cycle as possible. Shortly after the prior release is branched is a good time.
Orphan packages will be retired if they remain orphaned for six weeks. Packages will be retired in Fedora Rawhide and Branched (until the Final Freeze).
Retired packages
In case the package is no longer useful for Fedora, e.g. because it was renamed, or upstream does not exist anymore, then it should be retired. But this is only possible for development releases such as Branched (until the final freeze) or Rawhide.
During the Beta freeze, no retirements will take place, but once the Beta freeze is lifted all packages retired in that time period will be retired.
Retired packages have a 'dead.package' file that explains why they were retired, and are blocked in the buildsystem so they cannot be rebuilt without unretirement.
Unorphaning and unretiring packages
Ownership of an orphaned package can be claimed by any interested packager at any time. They then become responsible for the package.
Fedora packages whose rawhide branch has been retired require a re-review if they are retired for more than eight weeks or if there is no previous review of the package. The review is conducted in the same way as reviews for new packages.
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