Re: What to do about negligent maintainers?
Le Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 08:44:49PM +0100, Tollef Fog Heen a écrit :
>
> Hi all,
>
> it seems we have some maintainers not maintaining their packages
> properly, letting both RC and non-RC bugs pile up. The last example
> which has been discussed extensively on #debian-devel is anibal. His
> list of packages maintained include core packages like: nfs-common,
> portmap and libpng as well as less core, but widely used packages like
> fping, libx86 and gparted.
Hi Tollef,
I think that the proper way is to either propose to transfer the responsability
of neglected packages to one or – preferrentially – more new maintainers who
volunteer to take the responsibility for the package in the long term, or to
file a request for removal when possible. If the current maintainer does not
agree, then the TC can take the final decision.
This package-centric point of view ensure that the RC bugs are fixed by either
correction or removal. The punitive approaches like orphaning the package or
expelling the maintainer are not fixing the bugs and therefore increase the
entropy with no benefit, in my opinion.
Given that for some (most?) of the packages maintained by Anìbal I have not
seen attempts to takeover, I think that it is difficult to decide whether his
maintainership is detrimental to the package, or in contrary better than
nothing.
Have a nice day,
--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
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