Hi all,
It looks like Chess.jl by @Tord has had no activity since April 2024 and its v0.7.6 never got registered. As a result, users still pull the deprecated Formatting.jl dependency via Chess.jl@0.7.5.
I have opened a “Request for maintenance” issue on GitHub, but wanted to flag it here as well. It would be a shame to let this otherwise excellent package fall behind.
I am certain this request was made in good faith, but nonetheless it comes across to me as a little impolite to publicly declare someone else’s package unmaintained and ask for it to be yoinked to new ownership a mere hour after opening the issue in the package asking about maintenance status. I would have let the package author have a bit more time to respond.
@adienes That indeed sounds reasonable and I had no intention of being impolite—all I wanted to do is to use more than one channel for comms.
Mentioning issues, #41 on GitHub succinctly addresses an issue that affects all users of Chess.jl, provides what looks like a rather simple fix that would likely have taken the maintainer <20 minutes, and it’s back from April 2024 without any action or reply. The GitHub profile for Tord Romstad does not show any activity since that time. Given those observations, my “Bayesian” reasoning (always subjective) clearly figured that the REPO is abandoned or the maintainer completely under water.
In either case, the package does deserve maintenance—I would also try to help, even though I am still a newbie to Julia.
The key point is that the code is open source! It’s available for maintenance! Anyone can fork it, apply changes, and propose them back.
Nobody has done that “simple fix” — not even on a fork — as far as I can see. In fact nobody has proposed any changes since May 2023. It’s not just on a single person here.
The thing that’s special about that particular repository is that it’s registered in the General registry, so it’s what you get when you add Chess. Which is indeed quite special. So there is a rough process for requesting that a repo gets transferred in the event that the only maintainer isn’t available. But it’s not clear that’s the case here — not yet, anyhow.
Sure, it’s open source, it’s not just on a single person, and indeed, there could have been more help than just pointing out what could be done.
I will try to fix the issue in a fork and then open a PR as to “show some love” 
(BTW the “dispute procedure for packages” that you referenced seems to still be an open issue?)
Yeah, that’s why I called it a “rough process.”
But we’re a long ways from knowing that Chess.jl needs a new maintainer or even a new home— we first need the work itself! That part of the task is not gated by the repository owner or a maintainer. Anybody can do that task.
That’s great! I’m definitely not throwing stones here; my own house is far too glassy for that. Welcome aboard
That’s that and let’s hope that @Tord finds time—or help—to register the new version now. (I will try to reach him via E-Mail as well as per procedure!)
As of today, I have written an E-Mail to Tord Romstad (using the address given for his GitHub profile):
Hi Tord,
I hope this message finds you well.
As a chess fan and recent Julia convert (from Wolfram Language), I’ve added your excellent package
Chess.jlto my default environment. Unfortunately, as you noted in issue #41,Chess.jlstill references the deprecatedFormatting.jlpackage. Your attempted fix never registered due to a minorProject.tomlformatting bug.I have now opened PR #43 that corrects this and enables registration with @JuliaRegistrator.
Given the period of inactivity, I’ve also posted a “request for maintenance” on the repo and Julia Discourse. Please don’t take this as pressure—my intent is simply to keep a great package healthy and accessible for the community. If you’re short on time for maintenance, perhaps the community could help keep
Chess.jlhealthy—either via additional maintainers or by moving the repo to a Julia organization.Thank you for your work on
Chess.jl—it’s too good a package to let lapse.