Re: dpkg support for teams (From: 'debian-doc mailing list exists')
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On Sat, 29 Mar 1997, Susan G. Kleinmann wrote:
> 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.
The idea was to have one _person_ responsible for a package. This is the
current policy (though not explicitly stated in the policy manual) and I
agree to this standpoint.
However, I really like the idea of a "Co-Maintainer" (I think we called
this person "Backup-Maintainer" in recent discussions). What about this:
- - Every package must have exactly one person as "Maintainer". This person
is listed as "Maintainer" in the package control information. The only
exception are "orphaned packages", i.e. packages that do currently have no
maintainer. They list the "Debian QA Mailing List" as maintainer.
- - Every package can have several "Co-Maintainers". The intention of a
co-maintainer is to help the maintainer with important decisions (for
example compatibility issues with new upstream versions), to test the
package (and the source package!), and do interim releases if the
maintainer does not have the time or is not reachable. The co-maintainers
are listed in a special field called "Co-Maintainers" of the control
file, multiple names and email addresses can be seperated through commas
(,). It's also possible that a mailing list is mentioned as
"Co-Maintainer".
Thanks,
Chris
- -- Christian Schwarz
schwarz@monet.m.isar.de, schwarz@schwarz-online.com,
Debian is looking schwarz@debian.org, schwarz@mathematik.tu-muenchen.de
for a logo! Have a
look at our drafts PGP-fp: 8F 61 EB 6D CF 23 CA D7 34 05 14 5C C8 DC 22 BA
at http://fatman.mathematik.tu-muenchen.de/~schwarz/debian-logo/
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