Re: Ubuntu and its "appropriation" of Debian maintainers

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>]

On Sun, May 01, 2005 at 09:36:57PM +0200, Andreas Barth wrote:

> Actually, I don't think that the packages.*-code is part of the problem.
> Ubuntu treats the Debian maintainers at many places as "their"
> maintainers, e.g. at apt-cache show $package. The packages.*-code just
> displays that wrong information.

[Note that this is an entirely different matter from the one mentioned in the
original post]

Every Debian derivative I have seen does this the same way.  There is some
inaccuracy in either case, but I think this is the lesser of the evils:

- Changing the maintainer field
  - "<foo> is taking credit for my work!"
  - Requires modification of every source package, even if it is otherwise
    identical

- Not changing the maintainer field
  - "<foo> is blaming me for someone else's bugs!"
  - Users sometimes contact the wrong party (though reportbug does the right
    thing)

I'm sure that some folks feel more strongly about one method or the other,
but changing it on a case-by-case basis would be madness.

-- 
 - mdz