Re: unmaintained packages hidden by team maintenance

Tobias Frost <[email protected]> Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:58:32 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.project
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

I would like to take a step back and frame what I see as the broader
structural aspect of this discussion.

The question is not only whether the Uploaders field should be optional
for team-maintained packages, but whether doing so effectively redefines
MIA's mandate.

If explicit person -> package associations become optional, individual
inactivity within teams would no longer be a project-level concern. MIA
could then no longer operate under its current model, as one of the
structured signals linking individuals to packages would not be
consistently available.  While other heuristics may still exist, they
are not equivalent to an explicit and declared association, and are
operationally much more expensive.

Responsibility for recognizing and handling inactivity would rest
entirely with the teams.

As this thread shows, there are differing interpretations of what "team
responsibility" entails in practice. This suggests the change is not
merely a metadata adjustment, but a shift in expectations about
accountability and recovery.

In practice, many packages - even within established teams - are
effectively driven by one or a few individuals. When responsibility is
purely collective, inactivity can become less visible, particularly in
smaller or less structured teams where attempts to contact the team may
not result in any response.

If the project considers this trade-off acceptable, the resulting
mandate change for MIA should be understood as deliberate. 

I've CC'ed the other MIA team members via the team aliases in case they
want to chime in.

Cheers,
--
tobi

signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, 833 B)