Bug#581011: Maintainer/Uploaders nomenclature
Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.8.4.0
Severity: wishlist
I was always wondering (concerning 5.6.2/5.6.3):
1) The "Maintainer" field can contain only ONE contributor, whereas
there may be several to the package.
2) The "Uploaders" field can contain several people, whereas -
technically - there can be only one uploader.
Furthermore, having the "Uploaders" field is redundant anyhow, since
the actual DD/DM who uploaded can be found from his/her signature.
"Uploaders" might also just be the wrong description. Either it should
be called "Contributors", since it often contains the actual
contributors (that's even what policy says) and - sometimes - even not
the actual uploader. In addition to point 2) above, it might as well
be dropped, if "Maintainer" was allowed to contain several people.
Sometimes it simply contains a group anyhow (like the PHP people at
alioth and such).
Since neither the Maintainer nor Uploaders field actually needs to
contain any DD/DM all this becomes even more strange.
I'm not sure why all of this is that way. It just seems to have
evolved that way - for whatever reasons and I'm just saying that it
seems not very logical. ;-)
JM
PS. I don't know what the actual request here is. I'm sure nothing
here can be straightened out over night. Just keep these few bits as
comments in case you would be working on this anytime in the future.
Also feel free to discuss ;)
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