rfc: permissions on package branches

[Martin Pool]

On 18 February 2011 12:07, Scott Kitterman <ubuntu at kitterman.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 15, 2011 12:34:28 am Martin Pool wrote:

>> There are a few options here and we'd appreciate hearing from Ubuntu
>> people how they think it should work:
>>
>> 0- No change: the nominal owner keeps write access.
>>
>> 1- Don't allow branches owned by non-celebrities to become the
>> official branch for a package.  Instead, you need to push from that
>> branch into the real official branch.
>>
>> 2- When the branch becomes an official package branch, the owner loses
>> write access (unless they're also an uploader.)  That's what
>> <https://code.launchpad.net/~jml/launchpad/owner-cannot-write-to-official-b
>> ranch-516709/+merge/29446> would do.  It seems potentially confusing.
>>
>> 3- Something else?
>>
>> Let us know what you think either here or on that bug.  Also if you
>> think we ought to ask eg the TB, please tell me.
>


> Now that I know what a celebrity is in this context, I think #2 is reasonable.
> #1 would be achieved by not turning a particular branch into a packaging
> branch and using the default official branch (we have that now).
>
> Official Ubuntu branches are supposed, in some way, to relate to the code in
> the distro, so I think it makes sense to keep the upload and branch
> permissions aligned.  If someone doesn't like losing write permissions to a
> branch for a package they can't upload, then they shouldn't have it made the
> official branch.

People are funny things.  I can safely bet that if we support changing
person branches into official packaging branches, some people will do
it and then be confused by the consequences.  Also I think it makes
the access control model a bit more special-cased than it would
otherwise be.

So after this discussion, I think we should do 1, and then move
towards perhaps having the celebrity owner be mostly hidden.

I can't see any really positive reasons for allowing someone to change
an existing branch into an official source package branch.  Are there
any?

Thanks
--
Martin