Hello, in the past the policy for Debian account names was "once selected, never changed". Considering the mass of things attached to an account, like
- the amount of machines Debian runs,
- the (possible) mass of cronjobs,
- file ownerships, including in team directories,
- sudo rights,
- group memberships,
- ldap entries (mail, debian.net, sudo passwords, ...)
- and the sync to other associated systems (alioth, debian-ports, ...)
this was and still is a sane policy.
However, we acknowledge that there are reasons for an account name
change and we are hence hereby changing the policy to a "once selected,
nearly never changed". We do not expect more than a handful of requests
per year, if that many, and they need very good reasons, but it is not a
direct "no way" anymore. That is, if you do have a good reason for a
change, mail us. A possible good reason would be gender change combined
with a legal name change.
Procedure:
To request an account name change send a signed mail to DAM containing
your request. The request should clearly list the reasons why it should
get changed, as well as state that it is understood that the old account
is not renamed, but a new one is created and that the requestor will
take care of securing all files, cronjobs and everything interesting
that is attached to the account themselves.
The old account goes away two weeks after the change, at the same time
the old mail address will stop working.
DAM keeps the right to refuse account name changes if we aren't
convinced it is needed. (Sorry, it is not a good reason that you now
dislike the movie which inspired your account name).
If the request is granted, DAM will then initiate the neccessary steps
with DSA.
--
bye, Joerg
<exa> Snow-Man: Please don't talk to me. You have demonstrated yourself
sufficiently. There is a serious matter being talked.
<Snow-Man> exa: It's hardly serious, it's about you.
pgp4eQzDrTGHH.pgp
Description: PGP signature
