[csw-maintainers] NMUs, non-maintainer uploads (was: reminder on contributing on recipes)

[Maciej (Matchek) Bliziński]

2013/4/9 Yann Rouillard <yann at pleiades.fr.eu.org>:
> So do we change the text on this page from "List of packages maintained by"
> to "List of packages last uploaded by" ?

Yes, I've submitted the change: https://sourceforge.net/p/opencsw/code/661/

I tried to make it live, but:

-bash-3.2$ pwd
/var/www/www.opencsw.org/htdocs
-bash-3.2$ svn info
svn: E155007: '/var/www/www.opencsw.org/htdocs' is not a working copy

This seems wrong to me. I thought we were controlling the website with
our subversion repository.  How do we integrate the repository with
the live website, can anyone elucidate?

> I also find it strange that packages appear in the QA page of a maintainer
> if he just did a courtesy upload.
>
>>
>> I would
>> definitely not like something to be uploaded with my name on it. If it
>> is to have my name on it, I want to do it myself.
>
>
> It seems this is the thing that bothers you, I understand your concern
> (especially as the web page currently says "last uploaded by" and not
> "maintained by") but I personnally don't mind as long as I was contacted
> before.
>
> BTW, This is also the way it works in Debian, it does seems to work there.
> Of course the last uploader is visible in the changelog and the uploader is
> supposed to have a look at the bugtracker after the NMU, but the maintainer
> doesn't change.

Debian packages track package's changelog, so you have a more accurate
view of what was happening.

>> So I'd say there should be 2 scenarios after you contact a maintainer:
>>
>> - if the maintainer responds, you upload as yourself, you explain that
>> you're only doing courtesy rebuilds, and the maintainer is welcome to
>> come in and reupload to assign the package back to them.
>
>
> I am rather for reverting back "last uploaded by" to "maintained by" and
> doing NMU without changing the maintainer, and eventually add the last
> uploader information somewhere.

The thing I'm trying to say is that we don't store the information who
the maintainer is. In practice, we only store information who last
uploaded it. This is how it works in practice, and this is how we
should treat information. This leads to imperfections such as the QA
page listing the last uploader, but it's simply because we don't have
the information who the long-term owner of the package is (or if there
is one at all).

So in my opinion we have the last uploader information available, and
what we need to do, is adding the maintainer field.

> But on this subject I will be a consensus guy and follow whatever the
> consensus is.
> In the end what is most important is that package do get updated.
>
>
>>
>> - if the maintainer doesn't respond, you reassign the package to a
>> fake maintainer / mailing list, because if the maintainer is gone, the
>> package is orphaned in practice.
>
>
> I definitely agree on this one. This is the  "orphaned package" case and I
> think this is the most common case currently.

Cool!

> So let's agree on the fake maintainer name and the mailing list !
>     "Orphanage Caretaker team", "Orphaned package", ... ?
>     orphanage at list.opencsw.org ?
>    (hmm, I am not very inspired here).

Maybe even an existing mailing list such as 'devel' or 'pkgrequests'.
I would be hesitant to set this to 'maintainers' because of spam
potential (?).

Maciej