Bug#678607: debian-policy: "original authors" in 12.5 is unclear

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Russ Allbery wrote:

> Would one list bug-gnu-utils@gnu.org?  That's the most useful contact
> point (and we have a copyright-format field for that), but it's not in any
> real sense the "author."

Sure it is --- it's the contact point for the people who create the
code that goes into the upstream tarball.

Since bug-gnu-utils@ is the easiest way to coordinate future
development of "time", it seems like just the thing to put there.
Saying "The Free Software Foundation" is almost as good because based
on that information I can find their website (which for some projects
is not the same as their distribution point) and their preferred
contact information.

I suspect the original intent of this piece of policy was to uniquely
identify where the packaged source came from: I used such-and-such
tarball, by such-and-such author.  I agree that the wording is a
little crazy (because ambiguous).

Jonathan