diff --git a/pkgs/tools/misc/venus/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/misc/venus/default.nix
deleted file mode 100644
index 28c4508525ec..000000000000
--- a/pkgs/tools/misc/venus/default.nix
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,53 +0,0 @@
-{ lib, stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, python, pythonPackages, libxslt, libxml2, makeWrapper }:
-
-stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
-  pname = "venus";
-  version = "unstable-2011-02-18";
-
-  src = fetchFromGitHub {
-    owner = "rubys";
-    repo = "venus";
-    rev = "9de21094a8cf565bdfcf75688e121a5ad1f5397b";
-    sha256 = "10yyx4jaxxbwhica12aiw119aywghcr7b24gs9lrmafpa6xd3an2";
-  };
-
-  preConfigure = ''
-    substituteInPlace tests/test_spider.py \
-        --replace "urllib.urlopen('http://127.0.0.1:%d/' % _PORT).read()" "" \
-        --replace "[200,200,200,200,404]" "[200,200,200,404]"
-    substituteInPlace planet.py \
-        --replace "#!/usr/bin/env python" "#!${python}/bin/python"
-    substituteInPlace tests/test_apply.py \
-        --replace "'xsltproc" "'${libxslt.bin}/bin/xsltproc"
-    substituteInPlace planet/shell/xslt.py \
-        --replace "'xsltproc" "'${libxslt.bin}/bin/xsltproc"
-  '';
-
-  doCheck = true;
-  checkPhase = "python runtests.py";
-
-  buildInputs = [ python libxslt
-    libxml2 pythonPackages.genshi pythonPackages.lxml makeWrapper ];
-
-  installPhase = ''
-    mkdir -p $out/bin
-    cp -R ./* $out/
-    ln -s $out/planet.py $out/bin/venus-planet
-    wrapProgram $out/planet.py \
-        --prefix PYTHONPATH : $PYTHONPATH:${pythonPackages.lxml}/lib/${python.libPrefix}/site-packages:${pythonPackages.genshi}/lib/${python.libPrefix}/site-packages
-    python runtests.py
-  '';
-
-  meta = {
-    description = "News feed reader";
-    longDescription = ''
-      Planet Venus is an awesome ‘river of news’ feed reader. It downloads news
-      feeds published by web sites and aggregates their content together into a
-      single combined feed, latest news first.
-    '';
-    homepage = "http://intertwingly.net/code/venus/docs/index.html";
-    license = lib.licenses.psfl;
-    platforms = lib.platforms.all;
-    maintainers = [];
-  };
-}
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix b/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix
index bb2fb36bb5b3..fbd30aea40a0 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix
@@ -717,6 +717,7 @@ mapAliases ({
   v8_3_16_14 = throw "v8_3_16_14 was removed in 2019-11-01: no longer referenced by other packages";
   valadoc = throw "valadoc was deprecated on 2019-10-10: valadoc was merged into vala 0.38";
   vamp = { vampSDK = vamp-plugin-sdk; }; # added 2020-03-26
+  venus = throw "venus has been removed from nixpkgs, as it's unmaintained"; # added 2021-02-05
   vdirsyncerStable  = vdirsyncer; # added 2020-11-08, see https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/103026#issuecomment-723428168
   vimbWrapper = vimb; # added 2015-01
   vimprobable2 = throw "vimprobable2 has been removed from nixpkgs. It relied on webkitgtk24x that has been removed."; # added 2019-12-05
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index a65364271dad..4839d14e006d 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -8972,10 +8972,6 @@ in
 
   hitch = callPackage ../servers/hitch { };
 
-  venus = callPackage ../tools/misc/venus {
-    python = python27;
-  };
-
   veracrypt = callPackage ../applications/misc/veracrypt {
     wxGTK = wxGTK30;
   };