In early August, Debian voted to endorse the concept of "Debian
Maintainers" which allows contributors who, though not full Debian
developers, should be allowed to maintain their own packages in the
archive without requiring a sponsor for every upload [0].
Since then, a system for maintaining a separate keyring for Debian
Maintainers has been implemented [1], along with changes to the archive
software to support restricting uploads signed by those keys [2]. Thanks
in particular to Cameron Dale and Miriam Ruiz and Fathi Boudra for being
guinea pigs, during the initial implementation and testing. :)
We're now ready to accept limited numbers of applicants, and as such
are entering an open beta phase. That means that we think we've got
everything in order and it should be working properly, but we've probably
missed some things, and until we know what they are and fix them, we'll
be relying on DMs to help us make sure the system is running as smoothly
as it's meant to.
If you are a non-DD who already maintains software in Debian via a
sponsor, and you have a good knowledge of how to work in Debian, a
gpg key signed by some DDs, and a proven track record, then you're the
kind of applicant we're looking for to help us finish up our testing. If
accepted you'll be able to upload your packages directly without bothering
your sponsor.
To apply, talk to your sponsor or AM or any other DDs you know and work
with to see if they think you're ready for this step -- you'll need them
to write a mail to the debian-newmaint list about what you've done that
makes them think you make a good maintainer.
If you're a DD who knows a non-DD that you think would make good use
of the extra priveleges of a DM, you might like to talk to them and
encourage them to apply.
Applications are made by filing a bug against the debian-maintainers
package -- please see its README file for instructions on what information
is needed, and how to put it together.
Note that once you're accepted as a DM, you can still only upload packages
that are already present in unstable with your name and email address in
the Maintainer: or Uploaders: field, and that have "Dm-Upload-Allowed:
yes" set. That means you will need your sponsor to do at least one upload
with the Dm-Upload-Allowed: flag set.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can contact the
DM keyring team at d-m-team@lists.alioth.debian.org.
Signed,
The DM keyring team,
Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>
Anibal Monsalve Salazar <anibal@debian.org>
Anthony Towns <ajt@debian.org>
[0] http://www.debian.org/vote/2007/vote_003
There are a small number of deliberate differences between the
proposal and what's implemented at this point. These differences are:
- Anibal's addition to the keyring team (approved by the DPL)
- the keyring is maintained using git instead of svn, at
git://git.debian.org/git/d-m/debian-maintainers.git
- the Changed-By: field of the .changes file is looked at in addition
to the Maintainer: field when determining if an upload is sponsored
- the Dm-Upload-Allowed and Maintainer/Uploaders fields of the
last version of the package included in the target suite
is used to restrict DM uploads rather than the last version
uploaded to unstable (this primarily takes effect for uploads
to proposed-updates and when more than one upload between pulses)
[1] See the debian-maintainers package in unstable
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-dak/2007/10/msg00009.html
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