I have a problem here... What is an "orphaned" package? When does it become like this? Who decides this?
I worry about old packages, well written in a way which is not affected by recent changes in FPC or Lazarus.
Look at DCPCrypt, used by many programs. On the site referred to by OPM, I can read:
"DCPcrypt has finally been retired (except for the versions above). I’ve been developing it since 1999 and from 2007 (or so) it has been developing code rot as I’ve not had time to update it." As fas as I know, there is no maintainer for Lazarus. So, is it orphaned? I would say so. But "orphaned" means to many users: "Keep your hands off of this!" But I would say: no, absolutely no - it is an excellent package.
Instead of "orphaned" I'd prefer a line "Date of last update" in the package description, in additon to "Available since...". I agree that DCPCrypt will have a poor standing here too, but now there is an objective criterion for the maintainance level which can even be automated.
We have an online version of OPM at
https://packages.lazarus-ide.org/. Would it be possible to add a user comment field to each package? This way a new user could read the comments and could decide on his own whether this package would be worth trying out.