Bug#798476: debian-policy: don't require Uploaders
Am Freitag, den 08.07.2016, 17:36 +0200 schrieb Christian Hofstaedtler:
> * Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org> [160708 15:31]:
> > for some time I've been uploading packages with Maintainer set to a
> > mailing list and no Uploaders field. In cases where some package
> > kind
> > of fit within a team, but noone cares specifically about that
> > individual
> > package, I feel it's better than setting Maintainer to the Debian
> > QA
> > Group, which policy currently says is required, since the team will
> > get
> > bug mail, and any updates to the package will probably come from
> > the
> > team anyway. So I'd like to see this requirement relaxed.
>
> I also want to see this. It makes lots of sense, especially for
> teams maintaining very large numbers of packages. Honestly, the
> individual package does not carry heavy weight in some of those
> teams.
Mmm, In theory you're right. However in practice see also some
downsides. For at least some teams it is not very clear who is member
of it and on especially smaller teams it is sometimes quite unclear if
the team exists at all.
Especially in such it will then be lots harder to actually detect an
orphaned package and this might even deter some person taking over the
package.
> At the same time, many packages carry old Uploaders,
> including names of people that have long been known to be MIA, and
> are kept there only to avoid setting an empty Uploaders field.
Which makes this information invisible to people outside of the team.
> These packages are clearly not not-maintained (teams care about
> them), so orphaning or assinging to Debian QA Group would make no
> sense whatsoever.
YMMV. That requires a hell of discipline in the team.
There are many teams that take quite great care about the packages, but
others do not so well (or even existing only on paper anymore).
>From my short time as MIA member I can tell it is already hard enough
to find persons being MIA; to track complete teams will be lot harder.
(
e.g the question who is actually a team member is sometimes hard to
answer from outside)
IMHO if the team commits to maintain that package it shouldn't be too much strain to add an explict carer too, is it?
> (Also, as far as I'm aware, the large teams are
> all very open for anybody to join.)
For that people need to know that that particular package is up for
adoption. That information would be harder to retrieve.
However wnpp could be used as a tool here: Why not advertise
using a RFA and telling there that the team has open positions?
Maybe we should dicsuss this on -devel to get more other views and
arguments too?
--
tobi
Reply to: