Do you really understand what "deprecated" really means?

Deprecated. In the world of software development, "deprecated" refers to functions or elements that are in the process of being replaced by newer ones. The term comes from the word "deprecate," which means to disapprove of something.

In practice this means that when I maintain any of my (non open source) modules I'll get silly error messages.

What about the 151 issues and the 55 pull requests? Dump them?

And I'd say advertising bent in the deprecation notice (possibly with others if that makes you feel more comfortable) is a great way to start getting it known, despite the obscure naming.

This is FAR too early - see issue 2 of bent.

I think that request should go into a limbo mode - not deprecated which causes silly warnings - but where NOTHING will be undertaken, all issues and pulls will be ignored and the README page should be updated to note this and, when appropiate, references will be included to other functionally equivalent packages.

What about the 151 issues and the 55 pull requests? Dump them?

Nobody has been fixing or reviewing these for some time, they were already “dumped.”

Your comments make it sound as though there is some kind of dedicated labor in this project that people are entitled to. This has never been the case, request is not a product released and backed by a company, it has always been maintained by open source developers who care and as the ecosystem has moved in a new direction we all moved with it. I recommend you move on as well.

Nobody has been fixing or reviewing these for some time, they were already “dumped.”

What you mean is that YOU have not been reviewing these for some time. Be fair, we who are not collaboraters have no control over this.

Your comments make it sound as though there is some kind of dedicated labor in this project that people are entitled to.

I didn't mean it like that, but in a sense it is true, Open Source Software grants certain rights to the User as well as protecting the rights of the developer. These rights are of usage not of maintainance. When maintainance or futher development involves breaking changes, much care and thought needs to be taken. This is a breaking change and in my opinion unnecessary. Just leave the module as it is and we'll all move on with the next project - particularly if the alternative offers advantages. Indeed we'd be silly not to do so. But as far as I can see there is at the moment no real alternative.