Maintainer/XSBC-Original-Maintainer in Ubuntu packages

[Stefan Potyra]

Hi Luca,

Am Friday 12 June 2009 23:05:32 schrieb Luca Falavigna:
> Il giorno Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:04:52 +0200
>
> Morten Kjeldgaard <mok at bioxray.au.dk> ha scritto:
> > Maintainer: Morten Kjeldgaard (https://launchpad.net/~mok0)
>
> Soyuz would complain about wrong email address format and reject upload.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think using an email address registered with 
launchpad as Maintainer entry will make you a bug contact. However maybe 
that's limited to @ubuntu.com addresses, and maybe I'm even there still 
wrong.

>
> What you want could be addressed using a pseudo-header (I invent a name
> for it: XSBC-Ubuntu-Maintainer), but I think we should not introduce
> the concept of maintainership in Ubuntu. MOTUs and contributors are
> responsible at a whole about the packages in universe and multiverse,
> enabling some sense of ownership makes people less prone to fix things
> in a package they see as a "do-not-touch-my-stuff" thing.

Admitted, I've used (and still am) using my Ubuntu address as Maintainer entry 
for a few packages which I tend to care for, mainly in the hope to give a 
point of contact for change requests
History so far showed to me, that this didn't stop anyone from making bad or 
good uploads. mainly it boiled down to me sponsoring good uploads which I 
guess was mainly a result of being subscribed to bug reports.

I've also seen a few cases in the past, where I in fact wanted to know whom to 
contact and looked at packages.debian.org/packages.ubuntu.com to find out 
wether it's a Ubuntu local package or if the XSBC-Original-Maintainer came 
from Debian. That usually resulted in digging debian/changelog, which didn't 
always give too much clue (e.g. if packages are touched by many people, who's 
the best then to contact?)

I personally don't believe that using the Maintainer-Field for Ubuntu local 
packages will void that any packages are free for all, or impose any 
Maintainership concept. If it helps to have a genuine information whom to 
contact, and also if it will create bug contacts for Ubuntu local packages, 
I'm in favor of it. To be clear though, I don't think that this will impose 
any Maintainer-ship concept or that I'd be in favor of such a Maintainer-ship 
concept. 

To put it in a nutshell, I'd like to have an automated mechanism to subscribe 
initial packagers to bug-mail, and to have an easy way to reach those who 
have the most knowledge about a package. If the Maintainer field can do so, 
I'm in favour. If not, I hope we can find some other means.

Cheers,
   Stefan.
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