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Re: `Every package must have exactly one maintainer'



On 11 Apr 1998, James Troup wrote:

> Christian Schwarz <schwarz@monet.m.isar.de> writes:
> 
> >  4. A unique point of communication. In case of questions WRT a
> >     packages' `interface', it's much easier for other maintainers to
> >     get an `authoritative' answer if you have one person to contact.
> 
> You continually bring up this hideously bogus argument.  If we had a
> single authoritative new maintainer person, it would be Klee.  Do you
> think it would be easier to get questions answered if you mailed him?

If only Klee would be listed in the Maintainer: field, I'd consider this
package `orphaned' (since Klee is just to busy) and we'd more actively
seek for a new maintainer than we do now. Considering that dpkg is our
most important part of the distribution (just check out the FAQ--`What is
the difference between Debian and other Linux distributions?') the current
situation is unacceptable to me. 

> Questions instead go to the new-maintainer alias and one of us answers
> it depending on who isn't busy at the time.  This is, I would have
> thought, obviously a better situation.

Note, that we are talking about `package maintenance', not other
developer's duties. Facts are different if we talk about `webmasters,'
`listmasters', etc.--this is not what this discussion is about.

> >  2. Having only one person listed in the "Maintainer:" field does
> >     not mean that only one person works on a package! It only means,
> >     that there is a unique person who coordinates all changes.
> 
> So if that person gets busy no changes can be coordinated... baz bat
> bamus batis bant.

In which case we could define a `Backup-Maintainer'. 

(What does the `baz bat...' mean?? This doesn't look like you are taking
the discussion seriously.)

> >  3. If we had a few positive examples of multi-maintainer packages
> >     which are maintained well, I wouldn't be so picky about
> >     this. Unfortunately, we still have communication problems with
> >     the two multi-maint packages we have (dpkg and boot-floppies).
> 
> You're:
> 
> a) ignoring the complexities of the two packages and the fact that
>    they're native Debian packages and thus have no upstream authors to
>    fix complex bugs.

Fixing the `dpkg-dev is missing the debian-changelog-mode.el file' is
trivial--and the bug is very annoying. I'd agree to you if dpkg would only
have complex bugs--but that's not the case. 

> b) picking on boot-floppies for no good reason (what exactly is wrong
>    with it?  Okay, there are a lot of bugs, but there's a lot of
>    weirdo hardware out there.  There is a lot of active and good
>    development, people responding to bugs, new versions etc. etc.,
>    it's no comparison to dpkg).

Maybe, I was wrong. I just remember that a) you (as m68k-porter) 
mentioned coordination problems with new features on the bootdisks and b)
every few months someone asks who is responsible for the installation
manual.

> c) ignoring the bug tracking system, new maintainer processing and pgp
>    maintenance.  They're all multi-maintainer and all benefit from it.
>    (I dare you to say otherwise)

We are talking about package maintenance, not other duties (see above).


Thanks,

Chris

--          _,,     Christian Schwarz
           / o \__   schwarz@monet.m.isar.de, schwarz@schwarz-online.com,
           !   ___;   schwarz@debian.org, schwarz@mathematik.tu-muenchen.de
           \  /        
  \\\______/  !        PGP-fp: 8F 61 EB 6D CF 23 CA D7  34 05 14 5C C8 DC 22 BA
   \          /         http://fatman.mathematik.tu-muenchen.de/~schwarz/
-.-.,---,-,-..---,-,-.,----.-.-
  "DIE ENTE BLEIBT DRAUSSEN!"


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