On Fri, Jul 15, 2005 at 01:07:28PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes: > > Packages need to have maintainers -- meaning, someone needs to take > > responsibility for the package. Orphaned packages *routinely* slip into > > stable releases with release critical bugs that have been in the package > > for a year or more, sometimes even introduced by a QA upload. We don't > > know if these packages have users, but we *do* know there's no one in a > > position of responsibility over the packages who's using them and is > > fixing bugs that appear during use! > After having spent a couple of hours looking at the bug database for > orphaned packages yesterday, my feeling is that what orphaned packages > really need are users who will actually use reportbug. Yes. And whereas a package with a maintainer has a guaranteed minimum of one user concerned with the state of the Debian package, a package without a maintainer has a guaranteed minimum of zero such users. > I think that if we had active users of a package who would report the bugs > when they happen, orphaned packages wouldn't be as much of a risk. They > have undetected RC bugs not because there isn't a maintainer so much as > because there are no users reporting those bugs into the BTS. I agree, but I don't see any way to guarantee that orphaned packages have users that are engaged on this level. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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