Re: Changing policy for the Maintainer field
On 1/9/07, Marcus Better <marcus@better.se> wrote:
Stefan Gybas wrote:
>> The Maintainer has ultimate responsibility for the package,
> What if this person becomes MIA?
One of the Uploaders will notice and take over the package and replace the
Maintainer, which would be an improvement over the current situation.
If nobody steps forward the package should be formally orphaned, unlike
today when it's only informally orphaned and slowly becomes a quality
problem.
As you mentionned, a lot of packages does not need a lot of attention.
Why do you want to orphan a package that could be just here because a
lot of people use it and it does not need upload!
> I'm listed as uploader in serveral packages and have been mostly
> inactive for about two years. I should have removed myself from all
> these packages. So if someone wants to remove me in the next uploads,
> that's fine.
Well, I'm glad you told us about it! Ideally people who retire would remove
their name from the packages in SVN, so the change would be in the next
release.
Stefan hasn't retire. He did a lot of work on debian-java (well,
nearly everything with Ola and Tora, sorry if I forget someone) and
want to do more, but just does not have the time at the moment.
> The main problem IMHO is that most of the team members are only active
> for a (shorter or longer) period of time and then get busy with other
> things. Some return after a cople of months, others don't. Some (like
> me) still have the hope to return in the future.
I think your analysis is correct. That's why it is important to have clear
responsibility, otherwise we can more or less expect packages to get
silently orphaned.
The responsability is to the group.
> I think it's more dangerous if people are listed in the Maintainer:
> field and then become more and more inactive. A single maintainer might
> keep others from stepping in. To me, a group maintainer looks more like
> an invitation to participate.
Note that I still propose that we would have a group of maintainers, with
the others listed as Uploaders. Anyone could join and list themselves as
Uploaders, much like today.
But it's working in a different way. It does not invite people to participate.
In an other mail in this thread, you said:
It will fix one aspect of the problem, namely that
"shared responsibility" equals "no responsibility"
in too many cases.
I don't agree with that. Everyone in the group is de facto responsible
for every package. I think we need an audit about packages in pkg-java
and some do it sometime. Wolfgang did it for a lot of package, I also
did it a long time ago, you also fix a lot of packages.
I prefer the way we do it at the moment. Everyone can subscribe to
pkg-java and propose patches. Every member of the group can apply the
patches if they are good.
--
Arnaud Vandyck
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