[package] benchmark/1.8.0: Reason for 1.8.0 depreciation?

[BuildMonkey]

Description

We are using benchmark/1.8.0 and we noticed that the latest changes to the recipes removes it from the list.
e23098f

I was wondering why it was removed. Looking at the recipe changes, I can see how they impact versions 1.7.0 and older, but not for version 1.8.*. This is demonstrated by the recipe still supporting versions 1.8.4 and 1.8.5.

I would like to understand the reason why it was removed.

Package and Environment Details

• Package Name/Version: zlib/1.2.8
• Operating System+version: Linux Ubuntu 18.04
• Compiler+version: GCC 8
• Docker image: conanio/gcc8
• Conan version: conan 1.18.0
• Python version: Python 3.7.4

Conan profile

[settings]
os=Macos
os_build=Macos
arch=armv8
arch_build=armv8
compiler=apple-clang
compiler.version=14
compiler.libcxx=libc++
build_type=Release
[options]
[conf]
[build_requires]
[env]

Steps to reproduce

conan install -r conancenter benchmark/1.8.0

Logs

ERROR: benchmark/1.8.0: Error in source() method, line 79
get(self, **self.conan_data["sources"][self.version], strip_root=True)
KeyError: '1.8.0'

[jcar87]

Benchmark 1.8.0 is no longer in the git repository, but past versions and revisions remain available in the remote

conan list "benchmark/1.8.0#*" -r conancenter
conancenter2
  benchmark
    benchmark/1.8.0
      revisions
        986690c5617e01a52c62deb2d95b1969 (2023-05-15 15:51:06 UTC)
        29a57e965bb464065dc1e5c93c9f765e (2023-05-29 13:59:24 UTC)
        2fcecfa3404165474b7f78a66d5a3018 (2024-05-26 12:25:46 UTC)
        411b298fe14e7a838ce4e1662ccad4ea (2024-08-22 10:48:58 UTC)

This command works for me:

conan install --require="benchmark/1.8.0" -r conancenter

Could you confirm exactly what command, remote and Conan version you are using?

Maintaining several versions of the same recipe is costly for us - we don't expect to maintain versions that are too old, and also don't expect to maintain a high amount of "patch" releases for the same minor - in most cases, a 1.8.4 version will be fully compatible with any prior use of 1.8.x - and there's typically bugfixes.

If you are using Conan 2, for libraries like this I'd encourage to encode a dependency on a version range, e.g. benchmark/[>=1.8 <1.9] or even benchmark/[>= 1 <2] if it's known to offer source compatibility across major versions - which is the case and is documented in the benchmark readme: https://github.com/google/benchmark?tab=readme-ov-file#stable-and-experimental-library-versions