A checkout is used to get a copy from the current production version of a component (or variations like the previous version or the upcoming nearly-GA version), so that you can start a new version of it. But what about all those checkout requests that happened long time ago (a few days, weeks, months or years ago), and which are still in the same checkout status (= creating a new version of it has not yet started yet)?
A change package is assumed to contain changed components and/or scratch requests (in 2 decades we have not ever found 1 ChangeMan ZMF customer that's using the rename function, so let's skip that one). Fine, but where do those empty (= no components + no scratch requests) packages come from?
Change packages follow a life cycle, starting from the creation of it, up to the installation of it into production (and optionally followed by a backout it needed). That's the theory, and also what happens most of the time.
However consider some change package that was created by some ChangeMan ZMF user, whereas such package is not yet installed in production (not BAS yet). What happens with such package if the ChangeMan ZMF user quits the company (variation: moves on to another job within the company)?
Each change package is assumed to be installed in production (and change its status to INS/BAS) some day. The date entered during package creation is the actual planned install date. But with package update (U7) you can change it again, typically to shift the date to some other (later) date. The idea of that is that it allows you to change your initially planned date (during package create) to somewhere later on. Because while the package content is being developed, it turns out that the date that was originally scheduled is too early. So far no problem ...
