This has been suggested before in some form or another, but I’d like to make this a formal suggestion.
How about letting the users use the “Report App” button for something more than the 2 current “violation categories”?
Letting users report outdated snaps would seem like a good way to clean out the store for snaps that haven’t been updated for years.
My suggestion for a workflow would be something like this (and this is just off the top of my head):
- User reports an outdated snap from the store (criteria could be that it must more than 1 year since snap was updated for this function to be present).
- This triggers an automatic email to the author of the snap, requiring a response that the author still intends to update the snap.
- If author confirms, then there should be a “grace” period (for instance 1 month) for the author to update snap to latest version. (If author does not confirm, go to point 4).
- If grace period is over, and snap still isn’t updated, and it is reported again, author is contacted with a warning that the snap might be disabled if it’s not updated.
- If snap is not updated after another grace period, it’s disabled from the store until the situation is resolved. Eventually, this would also make the snap name available, if another maintainer wants to take over.
Any disagreements could be resolved with forum voting in the “store requests” subforum, like is that case with auto-connections, classic confinement etc.
What is the general opinion on something like this? I’ve found several snaps on the store that hasn’t been updated for 3-5 years, and I really think it sends a very bad signal about the snap ecosystem that unmaintained snaps are still floating around on the store.