Re: Changing policy for the Maintainer field
On 1/12/07, Marcus Better <marcus@better.se> wrote:
Arnaud Vandyck wrote:
> 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!
*Because at a certain point it will need attention, perhaps urgently, and
then nobody will feel the need to attend to it.
*Also because it would make the danger of bit-rot visible.
English problem here, I don't understand this sentence :'(
*Finally I would expect that another co-maintainer would take over the
package if the main maintainer drops out, so it would not need to be
orphaned.
Maybe we can make a survey: DD that do want to be responsible for
pkg-java packages, please, upload them with you in the maintainer
field and pkg-java in the uploader field. I think we'll have a lot of
packages that will be orphaned. I don't think the quality of
debian-java will be better.
[...]
> The responsability is to the group.
Yes, and I argue that this isn't working very well.
I think it's working. Wolfgang and others did a lot of work without
being DD and it's also because pkg-java is the maintainer. Also, note
that I'm not sure uploading package with maintainer not being a DD
will improuve the quality of the package!
>> 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.
Well, I don't understand this argument, which Stefan also put forward. If
the team web site states clearly that every member can become Uploader,
then why not?
Because it's not the responsability of the team but of one DD.
>> 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.
Sorry, I don't think of it that way. I do not feel responsible in any way
for packages where I'm not Uploader.
Well. I do. Even if I don't know how to fix things. I feel responsible
for the quality of Debian in general, not only the pkg-java packages,
not only my packages.
I won't take blame for problems in,
say, the kaffe packages that I never touched. We have hundreds of packages
and nobody can be $responsible for all of them, for any reasonable value of
$responsible.
But everybody can file bugs, send patches and resolve bugs.
Perhaps this is a misunderstanding on my part?
Well, I thought that was the definition of a team. I feel less
responsible when the package is maintained by someone I don't know and
when I get flamed when I upload it even if he doesn't take care of the
package for a long time!
[...]
All I want to do is to attach one actual _person_ to each package, who can
always be counted on to be responsible.
That's not what I call a team, but it's my conception, I don't want to
be a guru ;-)
Well, nobody seems to agree with me. :) But I think there is a real problem,
which affects the quality of Debian as a Java platform.
I don't think the solution you propose will solve something, but if
you want to be the maintainer of new package you'll put in pkg-java
and put pkg-java in the uploaders, I don't care, but except if two
other DD do agree with you, don't do that on existing packages.
--
Arnaud Vandyck
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