Re: [APPROVED][PATCH v1 0/1] [RFC] MAINTAINERS: Record old email addresses

On 07/08/2026 16:32, Tobias Burnus wrote:
> Richard Earnshaw (foss) wrote:
>> The main email: entry is a list of valid email addresses that you have; the first is considered to be your primary email. This is intended for 'dead' email addresses that will no-longer reach you (eg because you've changed employer, or ISP).
> Makes sense.
> 
> However, a IMHO very useful follow-up patch would be to add a comment block on top of MAINTAINERS.yml that (a) lists all fields - and (b) actually documents what they are fore and, as applicable, which special values are valid.
> 
> Currently, one might just pick a previous item and modify it and, possibly, additionally read through contrib/maintainer_utils.py and through some emails. For instance, it is unlikely to find 'inactive_email' - unless by chance, given that there only a single user that uses it (once this patch lands).
> 
> Tobias

We would need to change the yaml writer module in python if we wanted to do that.  Currently tools like contrib/add-write-after.py re-write the yaml file directly.  I believe it can be done, but not with the base, widely available, yaml writer module.

But we should certainly have a readme file that documents the structure of this file.

R.