Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes: > There are two ways of looking at roles in Debian; as being "maintainer" > of a resource -- whether that be a package, or a web site, or a system, > or something else -- and as being a "delegate" of the DPL with specific > delegated powers. > > Traditionally, maintainers have near absolute authority over their > resources, and get to choose who replaces them. Delegates, by contrast, > can be replaced by the DPL on a whim, though rarely are. | The Delegates are appointed by the Project Leader and may be replaced by | the Leader at the Leader's discretion. The Project Leader may not make | the position as a Delegate conditional on particular decisions by the | Delegate, nor may they override a decision made by a Delegate once | made. "Replacing delegates on a whim" is not really an option, so that fear has no basis. > Those are pretty extreme differences, and it makes sense for people to > prefer to be come under the heading of "maintainer" in that it gives > them more certainty in fulfilling the role; and given DPLs have > traditionally been fairly reticent about managing delegations, it's also > how things have tended to work in practice. > > In the end, I don't think the difference is that important -- whether your > a maintainer or a delegate, it's no good if you go crazy and start doing > horrible things. ACK. But my concerns about this issue are based on the various conflicts some people had with the DAM and the ftp-team in the past - not about things that were done wrong, but about things that were not done (or, more correct, done after a quite long delay). These problems were only fixed when the respective people chose developers to support them in doing their task, after a long period of whining, flaming and using nice language for each other. One can believe that if teams/persons who lead to such problems would be delegates, the DPL would be able to appoint people to help them, even if they don't have the time to search for fitting candidates. This may, or may not help. But it can't worsen the situation. But anyway, I dislike the idea that a large part of our Project resources are managed by people who are not delegates of the only elected person in Debian, which is probably why I care about this. Marc -- BOFH #79: Look, buddy: Windows 3.1 IS A General Protection Fault.
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