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
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