PEAR package retention policy

Hi, As suggested by Greg in "Importing packages into CVS" thread, I'm posting a list of changes that should be done to PEAR guidelines and pearweb. == Problem == Currently PEAR website allows package maintainers to delete packages and package releases without any limitations whatsoever. This means that a maintainer (or someone having his password) may delete a several-years-old package with dozens of releases or delete any release of said package. Such actions will affect all packages or applications depending on the deleted package or requiring a specific deleted release of the package. == Proposed solution == In a nutshell, the proposed policy can be described as "Whatever was released though pear.php.net, stays released". The ability to delete a package release shall be limited to releases not older than two weeks (*). Package maintainers are advised to use this feature in the following cases only: - Broken package definition file - Missing required dependencies - Wrong dependencies - Missing files - etc. - Newly introduced severe bugs in stable releases (**) - Severe violations of PEAR's coding standards and regulations - Incorrect names in public API - Incorrect package version The ability to delete a package shall be limited to packages with no releases. = On "moved" packages = As some developers may wish to move their development away from PEAR's infrastructure, there should be a means to announce this move (as opposed to declaring their packages unsupported), closing the bug-tracker and giving a prominent link to a new location. (*) The actual period is discussable. (**) Releases of stability level lower than "stable" are done for testing purposes and are expected to contain bugs.