9.3 Uninstalled Code in Repo

When you want to put system-dependent code for a non-GNU feature into the package repository, without actually installing it, you need to make special arrangements with the GNU Project.

To do that, you write to [email protected] and explain the feature, its dependance on some other system, and the obstacle that has prevented supporting it on GNU. They will make sure you understand the situation and the arrangements, and get your commitment to make the branch fade away later, in the proper way, if the feature goes unfinished.

Practically speaking, these special arrangements mean you put the code in the package repository in a discouraged branch to show it is not installed, that you have no commitment to finish it, and that it might fade away. Name the branch ‘ungnu-temp/name’. (If that name doesn’t fit with the version control system you use, we will work out a solution.)

Put in the branch a README file saying this:

This code partially implements the what is it feature.  We can't
install it now because it needs to be finished, so that it runs on the
GNU system.

We invite you to write the missing code to implement this feature on
GNU, so we can install the feature.  Until then, this branch must not
be merged into any branch that might ever be released.

See the section "Don't Install a Feature Until It Works on GNU", in the
GNU Maintainer's Guide, for explanation of the reasons for this.

The discouraged branch “fades away” because you don’t merge in changes from the program’s trunk of development. If the branch gets too obsolete to work at all, you simply delete it.