Maintainer/XSBC-Original-Maintainer in Ubuntu packages

[Morten Kjeldgaard]

On 12/06/2009, at 23.05, Luca Falavigna wrote:

> 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 realize that Soyuz at the moment probably would not accept a URL.  
However, it DOES recognize various email addresses and translate those  
to Launchpad teams or people. I have put my ubuntu.com address in the  
maintainer field of a few packages, and Soyuz actually translate those  
to my Launchpad homepage. I am proposing something similar, it could  
also be a "pseudo-email-address" (e.g. "mok0 at launchpad.net"). I am  
sure the nice Launchpad developers would repond favourably if we asked  
them politely via lp-liason.

> Not exactly. For each package uploaded, Launchpad UI displays two
> fields, "Uploaded by" and "Maintainer", so users have two contacts to
> send requests to in case it is needed. We cannot assume users know our
> policies, give them references is a win-win choice. "Uploaded by"  
> would
> probably be the "real maintainer" of the package, so users could
> contact a person interested in package anyway.

There will still be two fields, one for MOTU and one for the packager,  
exactly like now, only the packager's field would not be his/her  
private email, but a link to their Launchpad account. PLUS the  
packager would automatiically be subscribed to bugmail of the package.

> 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.

I also don't think we should have a concept of maintainership like  
they do in Debian. However, there are people -- both packagers and  
MOTUs who in practice do maintain some packages anyway, in the sense  
that they make sure bugs get fixed, new upstream versions get  
packaged, and they communicate with upstream. The latter is especially  
important when it comes to Ubuntu-only packages, since it is both more  
practical and more polite that we have a single contact person  
communicating with upstream, rather than a lot of different drive-by  
bugfixers who don't know the software and the package in detail.

So IF there is an Ubuntu member who wants to care for a package, I  
don't see why it should be forbidden. Perhaps that could be signalled  
with an XSBC-Ubuntu-Maintainer: field like you suggest, but it is  
another discussion than this one (which basically only is that  
packagers have to put their Launchpad-Id in debian/control rather than  
their private email address).

Cheers,
Morten