Default value of x-maintenance-intent

[hannesm]

I propose to set the default x-maintenance-intent to "(latest)" from March 1st on (and have a maintenance-intent run early March with the goal to archive packages by early April).

I suspect there are some packages where we'd like to keep the old default value of "(any)", such as OCaml compiler packages.

Reasons include that the uptake of this field is not high, esp. for packages I'd consider "unmaintained" (haven't had a release in 2025).

I'm happy to read your input on this.

[jmid]

We (@mseri @raphael-proust @shonfeder and myself) discussed this at yesterday's opam-repo maintainer meeting
and generally support changing the default of x-maintenance-intent from "(any)" to "(latest)".

There are indeed ancient package versions around, e.g. an 11 years old efl.1.12.0 which there isn't much point in keeping (and keep CI testing!) 😬

As Hannes wrote, we are of course open to (and dependent on) user input on this matter.

[hannesm]

see #29074

[shonfeder]

Reopening this because the policy change has not actually gone into effect (policy not updated, the changes it would entail not implemented.

I propose we take this policy change as an opportunity to revisit the policy holistically in light of what we've learned via the painpoints and problems over the last archiving efforts.