On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Ward Deng wrote: wdeng>We really intend take over some numerical/scientific wdeng>applications. However, none of us here are official Debian wdeng>developers. We are asking question if a company can be a wdeng>developer and nobody seems to know the answer.
We have had long policy discussions over whether a group of two can be a maintainer. I don't see that it is much different with a company. There are several potential problems. Debian needs an email address attached to a human who can be held responsible for a package. Debian needs a unique PGP key associated with a maintainer to verify uploads and correspondence (sharing a key presents security problems). There may be ways around these problems. But it may add management overhead to an already oversized organization. That said, I think an experimental organization-maintainer could be set up. I would suggest having one person at KT holding the keys and doing uploads and managing correspondence, and acting as an interface btwn Debian and KT. Debian needs (at least with its current infrastructure) to see KT as a person. Debian lacks funds and resources. I think that if a company uses its resources to maintain free software for Debian, it is fair that the company name be listed as the official maintainer. John John Lapeyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Tucson,AZ http://www.physics.arizona.edu/~lapeyre