Merge pull request #1983 from jethrogb/nursery-deprecation

Amend RFC 1242 to require an RFC for deprecation of crates from the nursery

Author: aturon

text/1242-rust-lang-crates.md

@@ -88,8 +88,8 @@ as full rust-lang crates), increasing the chances that the crate is scrutinized
 before being promoted to the next stage.
 
 Eventually, a nursery crate will either fail (and move to rust-lang-deprecated)
-or reach a point where a 1.0 release would be appropriate. The failure case can
-be decided at any point by the library subteam.
+or reach a point where a 1.0 release would be appropriate. The failure case
+will be determined by means of an RFC.
 
 If, on the other hand, a library reaches the 1.0 point, it is ready to be
 promoted into rust-lang proper. To do so, an RFC must be written outlining the
@@ -141,9 +141,9 @@ way of importing them.
 ### Deprecation
 
 At some point a library may become stale -- either because it failed to make it
-out of the nursery, or else because it was supplanted by a superior library. The
-libs subteam can deprecate nursery crates at any time, and can deprecate
-rust-lang crates through an RFC. This is expected to be a rare occurrence.
+out of the nursery, or else because it was supplanted by a superior library.
+Nursery and rust-lang crates can be deprecated only through an RFC. This is
+expected to be a rare occurrence.
 
 Deprecated crates move to rust-lang-deprecated and are subsequently minimally
 maintained. Alternatively, if someone volunteers to maintain the crate,

text/1983-nursery-deprecation.md

@@ -0,0 +1,82 @@
+- Feature Name: N/A
+- Start Date: 2017-04-26
+- RFC PR: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/1983
+- Rust Issue: N/A
+
+# Summary
+[summary]: #summary
+
+Amend [RFC 1242] to require an RFC for deprecation of crates from the 
+rust-lang-nursery.
+
+[RFC 1242]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/1242-rust-lang-crates.md
+
+# Motivation
+[motivation]: #motivation
+
+There are currently very ubiquitous crates in the nursery that are being used 
+by lots and lots of people, as evidenced by the crates.io download numbers (for 
+lack of a better popularity metric):
+
+| Nursery crate | Downloads |
+| ------------- | --------- |
+| bitflags      |    3,156k |
+| rand          |    2,615k |
+| log           |    2,417k |
+| lazy-static   |    2,108k |
+| tempdir       |      934k |
+| uuid          |      759k |
+| glob          |      467k |
+| net2          |      452k |
+| getopts       |      452k |
+| rustfmt       |       80k |
+| simd          |       14k |
+
+(numbers as of 2017-04-26)
+
+[RFC 1242] currently specifies that
+
+> The libs subteam can deprecate nursery crates at any time
+
+The libs team can of course be trusted to be judicious in making such 
+decisions. However, considering that many of the nursery crates are depended on 
+by big fractions of the Rust ecosystem, suddenly deprecating things without 
+public discussion seems contrary to Rust's philosophy of stability and 
+community participation. Involving the Rust community at large in these 
+decisions offers the benefits of the RFC process such as increased visibility, 
+differing viewpoints, and transparency.
+
+# Detailed design
+[design]: #detailed-design
+
+The exact amendment is included as a change to the RFC in this PR.
+[View the amended text](1242-rust-lang-crates.md).
+
+# How We Teach This
+[how-we-teach-this]: #how-we-teach-this
+
+N/A
+
+# Drawbacks
+[drawbacks]: #drawbacks
+
+Requiring an RFC for deprecation might impose an undue burden on the library 
+subteam in terms of crate maintenance. However, as [RFC 1242] states, this is
+not a major commitment.
+
+Acceptance into the nursery could be hindered if it is believed it could be 
+hard to reverse course later due to the required RFC being percieved as an 
+obstacle. On the other hand, RFCs with broad consensus do not generally impose 
+a large procedural burden, and if there is no consensus it might be too early 
+to deprecate a nursery crate anyway.
+
+# Alternatives
+[alternatives]: #alternatives
+
+Don't change the process and let the library subteam make deprecation decisions 
+for nursery crates.
+
+# Unresolved questions
+[unresolved]: #unresolved-questions
+
+None as of yet.