On Thu, Dec 17, 1998 at 10:01:54AM +0000, Oliver Elphick wrote:
> Enrique Zanardi wrote:
> >> Nope, the dreaded `exactly one maintainer' clause in 2.3.2 is still
> >> very much in place as of the latest policy.
> >
> >You're right. We should fix the policy. Anyone with good skills in
> >english writing that wants to modify that clause?
>
> How about the following:
>
> =============================
> 2.3.2 The maintainer of a package
>
> Every package must have at least one maintainer. The maintainers are
> responsible for ensuring that the licence of a package's software
> complies with the policy of the distribution the package is
> included in.
>
> The maintainer must be specified in the Maintainer control field with
> the correct name and a working email address for the Debian maintainer
> of the package. If one person maintains several packages he/she should
> try to avoid having different forms of their name and email address in
> different Maintainer fields.
>
> Where a group of maintainers handle a single package, the email address
> should be an alias that translates to the addresses of all of them.
> The group alias will be listed in the Maintainer control field.
> <debate>
> However, one of the group should be nominated to have the prime
> responsibility for the package. This maintainer's address should be
> listed in the Group-leader control field. The group leader has the
> particular responsibility of ensuring that Debian policy is followed
> and is the person who will be contacted if messages to the group
> alias get no response.
> </debate>
>
> If the only maintainer of a package quits the Debian project, the
> Debian QA Group takes over the maintainership of the package until
> someone else volunteers for that task. Such packages are called
> orphaned packages.
It looks fine, even the "debate" section. I see two minor problems:
- That proposal requires using a new control field. How hard would be to modify
dpkg for that?
- It would be desirable to have a list of all the maintainers on the
group, perhaps on a /usr/doc/package/README.maintaners file...
Thanks,
--
Enrique Zanardi [EMAIL PROTECTED]
