Hi, I would like us to discuss the merit of the XSBC-Orignal-Maintainer: policy for "-0ubuntu*" packages in Ubuntu Universe.
These are packages that have been introduced into Ubuntu somehow, either through REVU or an upstream-upgrade via a MOTU. This post concerns that type of packages, NOT merged or sync'ed packages. I think the XSBC-Original-Maintainer field doesn't work as intended, and that the field Maintainer field is redundant. Currently, we put the email address of this mailing list in the maintainer field. That is redundant, because the Maintainer: field of all packages in universe then is identical. It contributes no information other than what is already known by the package being in Universe. From the release string, it is quite easy to determine that this is an Ubuntu-only package, and it's already known that it's from Universe. One of our big problems is that people (understandably) love to get packages into Ubuntu e.g. via REVU. But often/occasionally/sometimes it happens that after getting the package uploaded, the packager disappears, leaving the package in an unloved and abandoned state. Although we encourage packagers to subscribe to bugs etc. of their packages on Launchpad, this is often not done. Perhaps because you have to remember to go to Launchpad yourself to subscribe to bugs. And, that is only possible quite some time -- often weeks -- after the package has been sponsored via REVU. I suggest that for -0ubuntu* packages, the maintainer field MUST be the Launchpad ID of the packager/contributor. That would enable bug subscriptions etc. to be enabled automatically, and we would have a much better "handle" on the maintainers/packagers. Quite simply, I think it will make it easier to motivate packagers to take care of their packages. Let me underline that for _merged_ packages and Ubuntu _bugfixes_, the maintainer mangling policy makes more sense, because we cannot expect Debian maintainers to be responsible for what MOTUs and others have done to their packages. Here it makes sense to move the Debian maintainer to the XSBC-Original-Maintainer: field, and put something else in the Maintainer field. Cheers, Morten -- Morten Kjeldgaard <m...@ubuntu.com> Ubuntu MOTU Developer GPG Key ID: 404825E7 -- Ubuntu-motu mailing list Ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu