Can't delete a project you created

Bug #38349 reported by Matthew Paul Thomas
324
This bug affects 71 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Launchpad itself
Triaged
Low
Unassigned
iteam
New
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

From <https://lists.canonical.com/archives/launchpad-users/2006-April/000215.html>:

"I've made a mistake entering my project ... in Launchpad. I have created different products (0.38, 0.39) instead of the correct product series of the original product."

People should be able to delete their own projects in cases like these.

See also bug 75604, marking projects as abandoned; and bug 106501, automatically deleting unused projects.

Tags: chr projects ui
Stuart Bishop (stub)
Changed in launchpad:
assignee: nobody → stub
status: Unconfirmed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

Tested on staging; there's still no obvious way of doing it.

Changed in launchpad:
assignee: stub → nobody
status: Fix Released → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Daniel M. Basso (dmbasso) wrote :

I have the same problem, when I first created the project, I split the libraries the main application use in several products. Now it seems more reasonable to me to have only one product with those libraries, so I want to remove their products, but currently there is no way to do it.

Revision history for this message
Christophe Dumez (hydr0g3n) wrote :

Same for me. I created my 0.9.1 release in trunk instead of in v0.9.x series and now I can't remove it...

description: updated
Revision history for this message
Darren Hinderer (hindenburg) wrote :

This is really strange. I'm hosting my project elsewhere now and having it still on launchpad is confusing. Why can't I remove it?

Curtis Hovey (sinzui)
Changed in launchpad-registry:
importance: Medium → Wishlist
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
bcode (troiano) wrote :

Yes, I have the same problem. How is possible to delete a project?

Revision history for this message
bcode (troiano) wrote :

How is possible to delete a project i have created?

Changed in launchpad-registry:
status: Triaged → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Zafar Karimov (zaffa) wrote :

How can i remove exist project?

Revision history for this message
Curtis Hovey (sinzui) wrote :

Ask to deactivate the project at
    https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/+addquestion

If the project has no data that is useful to the community, it will be deactivated. If the project has code or bugs, the community may still use the project even if the maintainers are no interested in it. Launchpad admins will not deactivate projects that the community can use. Consider transferring maintainership to another user.

Revision history for this message
Martin Pool (mbp) wrote :

I'm going to reopen this based on user feedback that they cannot find out how to delete a project. It would be ok if there is a "delete this project" that just explains they need to ask an admin to do it because we want human oversight, and gives a link.

Changed in launchpad:
status: Invalid → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Christian Reis (kiko) wrote :

I'd really rather you opened a new bug, Martin, because /this/ bug is both old and from a very significant angle, already, fixed. The bug can be "It's impossible to find out how to delete a project".

Revision history for this message
Robert Collins (lifeless) wrote :

I don't see anything in the bug log suggesting it was fixed, and we have a bias to fix older problems first (per https://dev.launchpad.net/BugTriage). I think using this bug is entirely appropriate (though it can be a bit disconcerting when old bugs are found to not be fixed).

tags: added: easy ui
removed: feature lp-registry registry
Curtis Hovey (sinzui)
tags: added: projects
tags: added: chr
tags: removed: easy
Revision history for this message
Curtis Hovey (sinzui) wrote :

Since this bug was reopened, I have made it the master the the bug we were tracking the issue.

We can allow project maintainers to deactivate projects when the project has a method that checks that no community is using a project. Project owners and registry admins would see the link to deactivate the project.

We have not formalised the rules to create the method. While I see the link to deactivate a project, I sometimes cannot because there are a few sanity checks that ensure a community is not disenfranchised.

If the project is linked to an Ubuntu package we cannot disable the project. Owners can gift the project to someone else. Some owner have removed the packaging links, but the project was later reactivated at the request of Ubuntu community members.

If the project has releases that have been downloaded (end-users), the project can be deactivated, but we have gotten requests to reactivate the project by end-users.

This issue is related to bug 106501, where we know users cannot deactivate a project, and there are 1000s of abandoned projects cluttering Lp's pages.

maxcsmsu (maxcsmsu)
Changed in launchpad:
status: Triaged → New
Changed in launchpad:
status: New → Confirmed
Curtis Hovey (sinzui)
Changed in launchpad:
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
steveno (steveno) wrote :

Is this being worked on? Why was this not an option to start with?

Revision history for this message
Curtis Hovey (sinzui) wrote :

This is not being worked on -- the launchpad's maintenance team has years or critical and high bugs to deal with first. Projects are public data in Launchpad, They are user by many communities . No user, even the one listed as the project maintainer has the right to prevent other people from using the project. Deleting a project will break everything that is tied to it, such as project it collaborates with. In short Projects are community things, not personal things.

That said, 55% of all projects registered in Launchpad fail to produce any code that can be used any community. Many users are create projects prematurely, before they have code or before they need to collaborate with other communities (Every user and team has it's own repository for personal branches and can create personal package archives so that arbitrary projects are not created.)

We would like project maintainers to be able to deactivate it if no other community is using it. The project can be reactivated if a user asks for it to be restored. We do not know the exact rules for this. If we did, we would also automatically deactivate inactive projects after 6 months or a year.

Criteria that prevent a project from being deactivated:
* The project provides packages for a distribution.
* The project's branches build into packages archives that non-project contributors subscribed to.
* The project has release files that were downloaded by non-project contributors.
* The project has proprietary data.

Criteria to just deactivate the project:
* The project is less that 30 days old (also a good reason to permit renaming it)
* The project has no branches.

Criteria to consider
* The project's bugs, branches, and blueprints are owned by the maintainer and drivers, there are no translations.

Revision history for this message
DARKGuy (dark-guy-2008) wrote :

Holy cow, this bug has been opened since 2006 (I can hardly remember when I opened it) and still no progress?!. This is one of the things I hate about open-source-semi-commercial projects. They're all about the community and such, but when you request something that really matters, they go stupid and tag it as "wontFix" or "screwYou" or anything else except "will fix it soon". Holy cow.

Revision history for this message
Andrea Corbellini (andrea.corbellini) wrote :

"Open source" does not mean that you request something and the developers immediatly start working on it. It means that everybody is free to contribute and submit patches to improve the project. You are confusing open source software with free piecework :-)

Revision history for this message
DARKGuy (dark-guy-2008) wrote : Re: [Bug 38349] Re: Can't delete a project you created

Does that also means that you can submit a bug and it'll be left there
for eternity, even when more than 40 people is affected by it? I mean
that might not be a large portion of their entire userbase, but at
least it should've got a *little* bit of attention.

I would love to submit - a hammer or two - but jokes aside, I don't
think we're allowed to submit patches to launchpad itself, are we?

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 5:49 PM, Andrea Corbellini
<email address hidden> wrote:
> "Open source" does not mean that you request something and the
> developers immediatly start working on it. It means that everybody is
> free to contribute and submit patches to improve the project. You are
> confusing open source software with free piecework :-)
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/38349
>
> Title:
> Can't delete a project you created
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/iteam/+bug/38349/+subscriptions

Revision history for this message
William Grant (wgrant) wrote :

We have a massive codebase with over 5000 open bugs, a large fraction of them minor feature requests like this. It's simply impossible to do everything that everyone wants. And yes, anyone can submit patches to Launchpad -- it's been open source for more than 3 years now, see https://dev.launchpad.net/ for details.

Revision history for this message
DARKGuy (dark-guy-2008) wrote :

Well, I don't think that deleting a project you created is a "minor"
feature. Even SourceForge and GoogleCode have it, why Launchpad
doesn't? that's as essential as building a car without door handles -
you can get it but can't get out. WTF?

Oh, it's good to know, because back then it wasn't. I think the ones
affected here (including me) can start working on a patch for a
feature which should've thought on when the first version was even
released, and see if it gets accepted (that's the other issue, but it
*should*).

:)

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 6:06 PM, William Grant <email address hidden> wrote:
> We have a massive codebase with over 5000 open bugs, a large fraction of
> them minor feature requests like this. It's simply impossible to do
> everything that everyone wants. And yes, anyone can submit patches to
> Launchpad -- it's been open source for more than 3 years now, see
> https://dev.launchpad.net/ for details.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/38349
>
> Title:
> Can't delete a project you created
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/iteam/+bug/38349/+subscriptions

Revision history for this message
Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb) wrote :

> they go stupid and tag it as "wontFix" or "screwYou"

Ridiculous. OK, I'm done with complainers in my mail inbox. Unsubscribing myself from this ticket.

description: updated
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