Bug#401452: Please clarify the format of the maintainer address to use in Maintainer: and Uploader:

[Enrico Zini <enrico@debian.org>]

Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.7.2.2
Severity: wishlist

Hello,

 enrico> Just when I wanted to split Maintainer fields my commas, I
         stumble on Maintainer: Adam C. Powell, IV <hazelsct@debian.org>
 enrico> Now I'll just split Uploader: gfields by commas
    liw> enrico, hmm, should the Maintainer field not be an rfc822
         compatible e-mail address spec?
 enrico> liw: I'll check the policy
    liw> hmm, the policy only mentions a problem with periods
 enrico> liw: and only the mail address seems to be RFC822

Section 5.6.2. `Maintainer' says:

     The package maintainer's name and email address.  The name should come
     first, then the email address inside angle brackets `<>' (in RFC822
     format).

     If the maintainer's name contains a full stop then the whole field
     will not work directly as an email address due to a misfeature in the
     syntax specified in RFC822; a program using this field as an address
     must check for this and correct the problem if necessary (for example
     by putting the name in round brackets and moving it to the end, and
     bringing the email address forward).

Now, the field "Adam C. Powell, IV <hazelsct@debian.org>" seems to be
legal according to current policy.  However, later in "5.6.3.
`Uploaders'" the policy says:

     The format is the same as that of the Maintainer tag, and multiple
     entries should be comma separated.

This would imply that commas should not be used in the Maintainer field.

This is not a big problem for me now, since I can work around the issue
by using two different functions to handle Maintainer and Uploaders, one
that does not try to split on commas and the other that does.

However, this issue seems to require a little clarification.


Ciao,

Enrico


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