[RFC 0081] Show unmaintained packages

rfcs/0081-show-unmaintained-pkgs.md

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+---
+feature: show unmaintained packages
+start-date: 2020-12-10
+author: lassulus
+co-authors: Mic92
+shepherd-team: Silvan Mosberger, Rok Garbas, Finn Behrens
+shepherd-leader: Rok Garbas
+related-issues: (will contain links to implementation PRs)
+---
+
+# Summary
+[summary]: #summary
+
+This RFC is about the policy (whether we should do this) not about implementation details (how we should do this)
+
+When evaluating a system (for example with nixos-rebuild) unmaintained packages should show up, so people are encouraged to maintain them.
+
+# Motivation
+[motivation]: #motivation
+
+Get all commonly used packages maintained. Get more maintainers, encourage users to contribute to nixpkgs.
+
+# Detailed design
+[design]: #detailed-design
+
+When evaluating a package a check would test `meta.maintainers` and raise a warning if it is empty. Add an option to disable it to speedup evaluation again.
+By default we assume it's slow and should be opt-in (maybe a flag to nixos-rebuild). At a later point we can make it opt-out if impact on eval time isn't too big.
+
+# Examples and Interactions
+[examples-and-interactions]: #examples-and-interactions
+
+```
+package bzip2 is unmaintained: (https://github.com/nixos/nixpkgs/pkgs/tools/compression/bzip2/default.nix) it is required by nix, firefox, X11 ...
+```
+
+(not sure if we want to print the whole dependency list)
+
+# Drawbacks
+[drawbacks]: #drawbacks
+
+Does evaluation take longer?
+People could be afraid to see how many unmaintained packages there are and switch to $distro.
+
+# Alternatives
+[alternatives]: #alternatives
+
+Have a fancy website to show all currently unmaintained packages.
+
+# Unresolved questions
+[unresolved]: #unresolved-questions
+
+What parts of the design are still TBD or unknowns?
+
+# Future work
+[future]: #future-work
+In the future, when packages usually have maintainers, we can think about enforcing packages to have a maintainer. So removing them if the only maintainer steps down and another doesn't show up.