On Tue, 5 Oct 2010, Matthew Palmer wrote:
To clarify: the intended point of this proposal is to solve the
perceived problem that DDs don't sponsor packages because they're
concerned that they'll end up taking responsibility for a package if
the maintainer ups and leaves?
I don't actually see that as a problem. There are simple ways to deal
with orphaned packages, regardless of the way the upload was made, and
they work. If a package I sponsor is abandoned by the maintainer, it
gets NMUed, orphaned and assigned to debian-qa like any other, and is
then available for adoption.
The variant of this problem I do see, however, is the uploading of
surely-soon-to-be-unmaintained low-quality or near-duplicate packages,
clogging up the archive and making extra work for debian-qa et al.
*That* problem isn't going to be solved by changing the maintainer,
it's only going to be solved by not uploading the
surely-soon-to-be-unmaintained low-quality or near-duplicate packages
in the first place.
Matthew -- sounds like you've identified a commonly-asked question that
has an answer. Would you (or someone else on the list) be willing to add
that to the "For Sponsors..." section of
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMentorsFaq ?