Package is broken because https://qaos.math.tu-berlin.de/qaos is offline

[fingolfin]

Either https://qaos.math.tu-berlin.de/qaos needs to be resurrected (possibly at a new address), or else this package is completely broken, and thus should be withdrawn.

[olexandr-konovalov]

Hm. This page works http://page.math.tu-berlin.de/~kant/database.html, but crucial links there are broken.

[fingolfin]

That page is not the QaoS API, so it's not relevant.

[olexandr-konovalov]

I see that. Maybe @hroptatyr / @freundt knows?

[hroptatyr]

Hi Alex,
yes, I can confirm that the machine that hosted the qaos database is decommissioned.

[fingolfin]

@hroptatyr Thanks for the info. So will it stay decommissioned? I.e., this package is permanently broken?

@alex-konovalov then we should remove this package from the distribution. What steps have to be taken?

[olexandr-konovalov]

Same like https://mail.gap-system.org/pipermail/gap/2018-March/001082.html and https://mail.gap-system.org/pipermail/gap/2018-September/001128.html (email to that mailing list explaining this). This repository will stay here, and for the package updates system I will archive the mercurial repository with release snapshots, and will remove the URL of PackageInfo.g from the registry.

[hroptatyr]

@fingolfin Yes, it's been decommissioned for good. Moreover, with Pohst's retirement maintenance of the data (and/or the query system (qaos)) has stopped.

[olexandr-konovalov]

@hroptatyr Thanks. So what happens next? Is there anyone who is keeping the data and is willing to resurrect this elsewhere, or at least conserve them in some repository?

[olexandr-konovalov]

As commit gap-system/gap-distribution@337de02 says:

Unfortunately we had to withdraw the QaoS package from distribution of GAP, as the servers it crucially relies on for its functionality have been permanently retired some time ago and are not coming back (see #13 for details). Without them, this package is mostly useless.

Of course the source code repository on GitHub will stay around, just in case somebody is interested in the code for other reasons.