Re: unmaintained packages hidden by team maintenance (was Re: Bits from the DPL)

Jonas Smedegaard <[email protected]> Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:24:47 +0100
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.project
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Quoting Andreas Tille (2026-02-17 14:12:42)
> Am Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 10:36:18AM +0100 schrieb Jonas Smedegaard:
> > > I would very much welcome this becoming the default way of dealing with
> > > such situations.
> > 
> > Do you mean to say, that you would welcome treating only very well
> > organized teams as teams in Debian?
> 
> No, that is not what I meant.
> 
> My statement was about the procedure, not about redefining which teams
> qualify as teams. Where a team has a working agreement and responds
> reliably, I would welcome using that as the default handling.
> 
> In fact, I have had good experiences writing to team addresses and
> receiving a response from a person. That suggests that pinging teams can
> work well in practice.

Sorry, but I still don't get it. Or possibly you don't. Since I am too
dumb to realize my own stupidity, let me try again to explain what you
might have missed - if you did not miss anything, then please don't
take this as me insisting that you are stupid, but instead me
elaborating on just how silly I am.

Tobias mentions well-behaving teams as unproblematic.

You "would very much welcome this becoming the default way", and now
continue to describe how you have had great experiences with such
unproblematic teams.

In my understanding, Tobias mentioned unproblematic teams in order to
*not* focus on those but instead focus on teams more challenging for
MIA processing.

In my understanding, you mention unproblematic teams to describe a norm
which all teams ideally should follow.

Do I understand that correctly?

If I understand that correctly, then I think it is wrong to emphasize
one type of team as being the norm - or the "default" as you phrase it.
Some teams deal with largely similar upstream packages. Some teams have
team members dedicated to internal housekeeping of team members. But
not all, and not ideal for all.

I very much agree with Tobias' note to "limit [uploader field] to only
those actually working on the package". I find that helpful also as a
regular Debian developer, not involved in MIA processing. To clarify, I
find it helpful to see who is "actually working on the package" as
opposed to "who lately uploaded the package" which can be gathered from
tracker.debian.org but is not the same kind of knowledge.

 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/
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