Re: Debian Maintainers GR Proposal

[Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org>]

  The question of whether we should do this at all aside, I'd like to
discuss the issue of what to call the new second-class packagers.


  Traditionally, members of Debian have been called "Debian Developers".
However, colloquially we are also often referred to as "Debian packagers"
or "Debian maintainers".  Furthermore, the word "developer" is used
interchangably with "maintainer" in the broader community.

  I hope I'm not the only person who sees a huge potential for confusion
if we create a new class of contributors called "Debian Maintainers"! :)


  I think this proposal should be amended to use a name that is not
guaranteed to cause instant confusion among everyone who isn't a Debian
expert.  Of course, no name can be guaranteed to avoid confusion, but it
would be nice to avoid the obvious landmines.

  Sadly, I'm having trouble coming up with a nice, catchy name that would
avoid confusion.  Something like "Debian Outside Contributor" is clear
enough, but it's more awkward and sounds kind of negative to my ear.
Does anyone have a better suggestion?

  Daniel