Describe What To Do When The Software A Package Represents Goes Away Or Is No Longer Available

[bcurran3]

Following the instructions of

When deprecating a Chocolatey Package, the following steps should be followed:

Create a new version of the deprecated Chocolatey Package. Prepend [Deprecated] to the title of the package (e.g. <title="[Deprecated] Software Title" /> Update the package description: Why is the package being deprecated? Add a dependency on the other package (if the package is being superseded). Remove all files except the .nuspec from the Chocolatey Package. Replace ... section in .nuspec with tag to prevent any file from being included with the package. Remove the iconUrl. Unlist all versions from the package gallery, except the final deprecated version. The final deprecated version is required so that there is an update path to the new package. By following this process, any existing users who try to update the old package will automatically get the new package, as it will be installed as a dependency.

... when deprecating a package WITHOUT a replacement dependency results in:

Cannot create a package that has no dependencies nor content.

i.e. if there are no files and no dependency, you can't pack.

Suggestion: Add to the docs: in the situation that the package is NOT being replaced by another package as a dependency, simply add chocolatey as a dependency to get around the problem, e.g. https://chocolatey.org/packages/ellp/86.20181230

If it's deemed this should be addressed in choco.exe, I'll be happy to create an issue there as well.

[ferventcoder]

The idea behind deprecation is that you are deprecating "FOR" another package. Deprecations typically have migration patterns. What you are describing is having a package that basically goes away, which is more like unlisting what is not available. It would be handy to have instructions on that aspect as well, but to be clear that this is not for deprecation purposes because there is no migration pattern here.