The following are considered orphaned packages:
A package with bugs open for longer than 2 months and the developers have not commented on the bug or made any commits to SVN during that time frame.
A package that has no open bugs and has bug fixes committed to SVN but does not have a release within 6 months of the bugs being fixed.
A package owned by somebody who is commonly known to be inactive.
A package denounced by its leads (i.e. The lead actually says that he is no longer maintaining it on pear-dev)