Bug#798476: [PATCH] Make Uploaders: optional

Simon Josefsson <[email protected]> Tue, 17 Feb 2026 23:17:36 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.policy
Message-ID	<875x7vaubj.fsf__2444.60241390101$1771366780$gmane$org@josefsson.org>

tags 798476 patch
thanks

Hi!

Given discussion on debian-devel about relaxing the requirement for a
Uploaders: header and making this optional, I wanted to suggest a patch.

It is my personal opinion that things would be better without requiring
the Uploaders: field, but I have thought this was a opinionated belief
but the discussion on debian-devel suggests others share this.  Maybe
there are still strong opinions against this that I've missed, but at
least this patch allows a more focused discussion about how a change to
policy could actually look.

What do you think?

/Simon

0001-Make-Uploaders-optional.patch (text/x-diff, 2.3 KB)

From caaaebd3b0502c5b99fb47721c13809468c34269 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Simon Josefsson <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2026 23:08:57 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Make Uploaders: optional

This relaxes the requirement to add a Uploaders: field with human
names when Maintainer: contains a shared e-mail alias.

Use the term "uploader" instead of "co-maintainer" because the former
term is used elsewhere but the latter term is only ever used here
without any definition.

Closes: #798476
---
 policy/ch-binary.rst        | 2 +-
 policy/ch-controlfields.rst | 6 +++---
 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/policy/ch-binary.rst b/policy/ch-binary.rst
index 45a0068..9726b12 100644
--- a/policy/ch-binary.rst
+++ b/policy/ch-binary.rst
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ The format of the ``Maintainer`` control field is described in
 :ref:`s-f-Maintainer`.
 
 If the maintainer of the package is a team of people with a shared email
-address, the ``Uploaders`` control field must be present and must
+address, the ``Uploaders`` control field may be present and
 contain at least one human with their personal email address. See
 :ref:`s-f-Uploaders` for the syntax of that field.
 
diff --git a/policy/ch-controlfields.rst b/policy/ch-controlfields.rst
index cad4b50..326d0f7 100644
--- a/policy/ch-controlfields.rst
+++ b/policy/ch-controlfields.rst
@@ -363,16 +363,16 @@ information about package maintainers.
 ``Uploaders``
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
-List of the names and email addresses of co-maintainers of the package,
+List of the names and email addresses of uploaders of the package,
 if any. If the package has other maintainers besides the one named in
 the :ref:`Maintainer field <s-f-Maintainer>`, their names and email
 addresses should be listed here. The format of each entry is the same as
 that of the Maintainer field, and multiple entries must be comma
 separated.
 
-This is normally an optional field, but if the ``Maintainer`` control
+This is an optional field.  If the ``Maintainer`` control
 field names a group of people and a shared email address, the
-``Uploaders`` field must be present and must contain at least one human
+``Uploaders`` field may be present and contain at least one human
 with their personal email address.
 
 The Uploaders field in ``debian/control`` can be folded.
-- 
2.52.0

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