Hi from a lurker. Just my two cents about deprecation: I totally agree with deprecation: some libraries are basically not used anymore because they were included in the standard libraries, or because there are better alternatives. Removing them means more focusing on more useful libraries. If a software is stuck with a very old library, they will continue to use that version of boost. It's simple. At least it should be possible to create a bugfix release if needed (i.e. 1.80.1 if the library is removed in 1.81). It's necessary anyway to set some rule about deprecation, so users can handle them properly. The main rule in my opinion is to define the number of releases between the deprecation and the deletion of the library from boost. I.e. it's possible to say that when a library is deprecated, it will be removed from three to five future releases. This gives the users a clear view on the future use of that library: "I'm finishing the project in six months, so it's ok to continue to use it", or "The project will last for three years, maybe is better to remove it and find an alternative". I've seen projects that are stucks to very old libraries because the were not well organized about deprecation for lack of information about them, and then libraries will be removed without any warning and people was not able to organize the code to handle the deletion of that library in time. Also, when a library will be deprecated, at least other two information will be needed: * The reason (lack of maintenance, alternatives in modern c++ etc). * At least one alternative to the library, if any (i.e. use std::thread instead of boost::thread). This will give to us the needed information to handle the deprecated library that we are using in our projects. I don't agree with "zombies" libraries. If a library is deprecated, should be deprecated also for boost developers. If you want to remove it also boost libraries that use that should be updated as well. If not, there's no reason to deprecate a library since it will continue to be used. Boost developers can use the deprecation time range defined before to organize the switch in order to remove that dependency. If it's not possible for any reason, the library should not be deprecated. Unmantained libraries are also dangerous. If you continue to ship a unmaintained library, is possible to find a bug that will last for much time, and there's the risk that boost will not be seen as stable as they usually are. No library should be marked as "unmaintained": if noone can handle it maybe it's better to think to deprecate it (usually a unmaintained library is a old one in my experience), or it's better to maintain a public bug tracking system in the main site, so everyone can contribute with a patch if he wants (also the bugs that are present in a specific release should be notified in the changelog). During the boost development then you can take an eye to the bug tracking system, and maybe sometime it's better to stop the development of new libraries and features, and focus the effort on a bugfixing release. I don't expect that there will be many bugs, because there are very few of them at the moment, but there must be a specific time during development in which you should decide about what to do on that dozen of bugs in "unmaintained" libraries, that no one will fix because there are no maintainers. This is only my point of view. I hope it can help. Regards Daniele Lupo On 08/05/2023 20:15, John Maddock via Boost wrote:

...

Stagnation * There are fewer new libraries proposed. * Formal reviews get less participation. * Review managers are typically scarce now. * The mailing list volume is thinning; younger folks don’t use lists. * There is no second order effect: new libraries rarely use Boost.

Quality * Some libraries are unmaintained and create a negative user experience. * Users open issues, and no one replies to them. * Pull requests are submitted to abandoned repositories. * Scant financial resources for infrastructure or staff.

I think this is correct.  I have somewhat suggested this before (as others have suggested a Boost-2), and for various perfectly good reasons nothing has ever happened.

I think at this point we should be somewhat aggressive in deprecating and then removing libraries which are unmaintained and no longer up to scratch.  Call it a once in a decade spring clean ;)

So far I think we have only removed one library - one of mine (TR1) under my direction and even getting that done was a bit of a rigmarole as I remember :(

So, how about something like this:

We have three categories:

"Deprecated" libraries are marked for removal at some specific future date in time.  This gives users/developers who care about those libraries time to step up to the plate and a) complain, and b) do some actual maintenance.  After deprecation, libraries that are actually removed go into a separate zip, probably on their own github page, and this is the last release they ever get.

"Zombie" libraries are deprecated, but are still used within Boost.  A good example would be static_assert, which should not now be used in new libraries, but may still be needed by existing code.  Zombie libraries would still be shipped with Boost, but their documentation would not be listed in our main index.  We might however, have a separate index for them just in case anyone still needs to find them.  Should we have a new Boost.Compat there could be quite a few of these in time.

"Unmaintained": speaks for itself, the library is important enough to keep around, but has no maintainer.  We need a procedure for acquiring new maintainers, but traditionally we've recruited from existing authors who are a small, and rather busy pool of people. The alternative is to recruit from outside, but we often get enthusiastic, but not very experienced people coming forward. Getting them to submit PR's and having an experienced old hand check them through is very time consuming and unsatisfactory for both parties.  So how about this: anyone that wants to step up and enhance/maintain an unmaintained library can do so - *in their own fork of the github repro* - then when they're ready for a release, they ask for something akin to a mini-review - if it's positive they get to merge to Boost and become an official maintainer, if not they get feedback on what they need to change.  Who knows, maybe this will even stimulate some discussion and innovation again as well as bringing in new blood?

Just thinking out loud here, John.

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