Github actions-rs maintenance

[CrockAgile]

actions-rs has been a great community resource for common Rust CI tasks via Github Actions. Github dependency graph currently estimates there are >50,000 dependent repositories . So actions-rs should be considered a massive success for the Rust community! But currently the project relies on a single generous maintainer.

I want to say clearly that free and open source maintainers owe users nothing. It would be incorrect to ask them to give more free labor. But the project has the potential to start being a pain for the community. The github actions currently cause multiple deprecation warnings (node.js versions, and github actions changes), and will start to become full errors at some point in 2023. The last PR merged to either actions-rs/cargo or actions-rs/toolchain was July 1st, 2021.

All this to ask, what should the Rust community do?

• is there a working group which covers this?
• should the problem be left for another generous open source maintainer to solve?

The problem is not urgent, but seems worth discussion.

[BurntSushi]

@CrockAgile

but seems worth discussion

There's quite a bit here: https://github.com/actions-rs/toolchain/issues/216

I don't believe there is any extant working group that covers this sort of thing.

[CAD97]

The closest thing is

Rust Bus

but fundamentally this requires the original author(s) to opt-in to allowing the Rust Bus org to serve as a fallback in case they disappear.

Without svartalf giving co-ownership of the organization to someone else, there's not really anything which can be done beyond providing forks/alternatives and directing people to use them instead of the actions-rs actions.