dpkg support for teams (From: 'debian-doc mailing list exists')

["Susan G. Kleinmann" <sgk@kleinmann.com>]

Jim Pick wrote:

>I don't know about assigning tasks to people, but if we provided an 
>environment where people received credit and recognition for the work 
>they do in providing documentation - similar in the way that we honour
>package developers - then I think people will contribute.  Of course,
>we should also build an infrastructure that makes it easy.

I've been thinking that the current (or at least, my current understanding 
of) dpkg "Maintainer ID" is a little limiting, since it seems only
to recognize individuals.  There are times when people want to collaborate
on a package, and there's no mechanism to support this.

Suggestion: Allow the Maintainer field of the control file to refer to
a mail alias which is the name of a team.  The alias expands to the names
of all members of the group.  Perhaps the aliases could be registered by
a lynx-readable form.  

One might want to expand on that idea and have a second optional alias 
for each team, who is a current point of contact.

Reactions?
Susan