Add metadata to indicate which collections are unmaintained / deprecated / will be removed

[felixfontein]

This is necessary to implement ansible-community/antsibull-docs#93.

Basically there are four ways in this PR that mark a collection for removal. I've added three further possibilities below:

1. It is considered unmaintained:

   removal:
     version: 11
     reason: considered-unmaintained
     discussion: https://forum.ansible.com/...
     announce_version: 9.3.0

2. It has officially been deprecated:

   removal:
     version: 11
     reason: deprecated
     discussion: https://forum.ansible.com/...
     announce_version: 9.3.0

3. It has been renamed (new name provided) and the removal version is known:

   removal:
     version: 10
     reason: renamed
     new_name: namespace.name
     announce_version: 9.3.0

4. It has been renamed (new name provided) and the removal version is not yet known:

   removal:
     version: TBD
     reason: renamed
     new_name: namespace.name
     announce_version: 9.3.0

5. (Not yet in use.) It is broken and no longer works with modern versions of Ansible:

   removal:
     version: 11
     reason: broken
     discussion: https://forum.ansible.com/...
     announce_version: 9.3.0

6. (Not yet in use.) Removed for violations of the inclusion rules:

   removal:
     version: 11
     reason: inclusion-rules-violation
     discussion: https://forum.ansible.com/...
     announce_version: 9.3.0

7. (Not yet in use.) Other:

   removal:
     version: 11
     reason: other
     reason_text: The collection wasn't cow friendly, so the Steering Committee decided to kick it out.
     discussion: https://forum.ansible.com/...
     announce_version: 9.3.0

What do you think? That should cover all cases in https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/community/collection_contributors/collection_package_removal.html (if I didn't forgot about something), and there's the free-form version (reason: other / reason_text: ...) for other cases.

[felixfontein]

I created a linter for collection-meta.yaml: ansible-community/antsibull-build#617

[mariolenz]

Do we really want a removal version TBD? This doesn't look really helpful.

This might be OK for now, but I think we shouldn't have this in a release. Do you think we can give an actual version in time for Ansible 9.10.0 / 10.4.0, that is within the next two weeks?

edit: ibm.spectrum_virtualize deprecated / renamed

[felixfontein]

Do we really want a removal version TBD? This doesn't look really helpful.

I disagree for renamed collections: there it simply says "it's renamed, but we haven't yet decided when to remove the redirects". Which IMO is totally fine, as long as we announce removal of the redirects in time.

This might be OK for now, but I think we shouldn't have this in a release. Do you think we can give an actual version in time for Ansible 9.10.0 / 10.4.0, that is within the next two weeks?

Right now the old collection is / will be replaced by a set of redirects, which avoid breakage for users. So let's keep these for some time.

We should definitely decide on how to handle renames, i.e. for how long to keep redirects, but I don't think we need to do this in the next two weeks so just that we can avoid a TBD.

[mariolenz]

I disagree for renamed collections: there it simply says "it's renamed, but we haven't yet decided when to remove the redirects". Which IMO is totally fine, as long as we announce removal of the redirects in time.

I think we should give a definite version when we remove a collection instead of just TBD. I'm not totally against TBD, though. That's why I only commented and didn't request a change ;-)

[mariolenz]

Since nobody else left a comment, I guess people are fine with version: TBD.

So I've reconsidered and say it's OK, too... after all it's it' better than nothing 🤷

[felixfontein]

We can always sitll disallow TBD later. If https://forum.ansible.com/t/8150 or something similar is accepted there should no longer be a need for TBD anyway.

[mariolenz]

Sorry, I think I've lost track and am a little bit confused about this PR. I've changed my opinion on the TBD issue, but I don't understand what should happen with this PR now:

• Are you waiting on more approvals / comments?
• Are you waiting on a discussion / vote to finish?
• Are you waiting on any PRs in antsibull / antsibull-docs?

[felixfontein]

• Are you waiting on more approvals / comments?

Mainly this.

[felixfontein]

I renamed two fields to include a prefix major_ for fields that denote major versions (version → major_version, redirect_replacement_version → redirect_replacement_major_version); see ansible-community/antsibull-build#617 (comment).

[gotmax23]

I didn't personally check the links/versions for validity, but this looks good to me other than that. I guess the only remaining thing is to actual run the linter in CI.

[felixfontein]

The linting step is now run before test-building the releases.

[gotmax23]

The linting step is now run before test-building the releases.

Should it be part of the release playbook in antsibull, instead?

[felixfontein]

I don't think so, that playbook should use the data (and assume it's correct - it can fail if it isn't), but not do extra linting like making sure the order of the entries is correct.

[gotmax23]

I don't think so, that playbook should use the data (and assume it's correct - it can fail if it isn't), but not do extra linting like making sure the order of the entries is correct.

Makes sense to me. We could also add the linter to the noxfile as a future enhancement.

[felixfontein]

Anyone mind if I merge this?

[felixfontein]

Let's wait until we decide the fate of ansible-community/antsibull-build#622.

[felixfontein]

ansible-community/antsibull-docs#330 uses this data for the official docsite, to indicate that collections are deprecated and will be removed from Ansible.

[oraNod]

Thanks @felixfontein

[samccann]

So we should document this new workflow 'somewhere' So SC members know that once a vote to deprecate/remove a collection is final, they have to open a PR in this repo to add the details.

[mariolenz]

So we should document this new workflow 'somewhere' So SC members know that once a vote to deprecate/remove a collection is final, they have to open a PR in this repo to add the details.

Maybe something like ansible/ansible-documentation#1884?

Feel free to close this PR if you think it's too broken to be fixed. It's just a suggestion 😉

edit:
With "this one" I meant the PR in ansible-documentation, not this this PR ;-)

[felixfontein]

@mariolenz @gotmax23 @oraNod @samccann thanks for reviewing this!