</section>
<section id="archive-manip">
-<title>Moving, removing, renaming, adopting, and orphaning packages</title>
+<title>Moving, removing, renaming, orphaning, adopting, and reintroducing packages</title>
<para>
Some archive manipulation operations are not automated in the Debian upload
process. These procedures should be manually followed by maintainers. This
</para>
</section>
+<section id="reintroducing-pkgs">
+<title>Reintroducing packages</title>
+<para>
+Packages are often removed due to release-critical bugs, absent maintainers,
+too few users or poor quality in general. While the process of reintroduction
+is similar to the initial packaging process, you can avoid some pitfalls by
+doing some historical research first.
+</para>
+<para>
+You should check why the package was removed in the first place. This
+information can be found in the removal item in the news section of the PTS
+page for the package or by browsing the log of
+<ulink url="http://&ftp-master-host;/#removed">removals</ulink>.
+The removal bug will tell you why the package was removed and will give some
+indication of what you will need to work on in order to reintroduce the package.
+It may indicate that the best way forward is to switch to some other piece of
+software instead of reintroducing the package.
+</para>
+<para>
+It may be appropriate to contact the former maintainers to find out if
+they are working on reintroducing the package, interested in co-maintaining
+the package or interested in sponsoring the package if needed.
+</para>
+<para>
+You should do all the things required before introducing new packages
+(<xref linkend="newpackage"/>).
+</para>
+<para>
+You should base your work on the latest packaging available that is suitable.
+That might be the latest version from <literal>unstable</literal>, which will
+still be present in the <ulink url="&snap-debian-org;">snapshot archive</ulink>.
+</para>
+<para>
+The version control system used by the previous maintainer might contain useful
+changes, so it might be a good idea to have a look there. Check if the control
+file of the previous package contained any headers linking to the version
+control system for the package and if it still exists.
+</para>
+<para>
+Package removals from unstable (not testing, stable or oldstable) trigger the
+closing of all bugs related to the package. You should look through all the
+closed bugs (including archived bugs) and unarchive and reopen any that were
+closed in a version ending in <literal>+rm</literal> and still apply. Any that
+no longer apply should be marked as fixed in the correct version if that is
+known.
+</para>
+</section>
+
</section>
<section id="porting">
~ianmdlvl / developers-reference.git / blobdiff