Re: Q: single-maintainer vs team-maintainance of packages

Simon Josefsson <[email protected]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 23:49:20 +0100
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
I think this may be getting off topic for debian-vote, so unless there
is some reply that moves it back to DPL-campaigning territory, this is
my last response.  I think this is an important enough topic to warrant
serious attention from a DPL.

Marc Haber <[email protected]> writes:

> On Tue, Mar 24, 2026 at 11:07:31PM +0100, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>>Marc Haber <[email protected]> writes:
>>> Adduser, on the other side, I would love to have team maintained. Are
>>> you planning to fine me because I have failed to assemble a team
>>> around adduser? Or what do you have in your mind to make people do
>>> team work if a team fails to form?
>>>
>>> Will I get people assigned to help with adduser? Who is going to
>>> manage those non-volunteers?
>>>
>>> Team maintainance is a good thing. But forcing or requiring it is not
>>> going to work. Don't assume that there are people queuing up to
>>> co-maintain packages.
>>
>>I share your reaction, but also: please don't assume poeple will NOT
>>randomly appear if there is a team around packages.  You don't
>>necessarily need to do anything beyond changing the 'Maintainer:' field.
>
> Like this: ?
> $ git blame debian/control | grep Maintainer
> 9efa1964 (Marc Haber 2018-02-02 17:07:49 +0100 4) Maintainer: Debian
> Adduser Developers <[email protected]>
>
> Note the date. Some people appeared, but also vanished again.

I never understood the semantics of those self-referential teams.
Are they open to anyone not already part of the team?

I have no idea about 'adduser', but I found that for anything remotely
related to security, the https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/pkg-security is a
nice choice, where some people appear to be randomly helping out fixing
team-maintained packages.

>>I wish there was a 'Debian Developer Team' where all packages could be
>>welcome to.
>
> We already have that in Debian salsa.

I think there is disagreement on what that group means, and how the
Salsa /debian/ namespace interacts with the 'Maintainer' field of the
package.

Some people seems to believe /debian/ is the continuation of the old
alioth DD-wide team and open for writing by anyone.

Some people believe is a nice place to store your Salsa repository
without needing any additional Salsa group or permission management, but
that the Maintainer: field is the authority on who "owns" a package and
can make changes.

I can't find any documentation clearly deciding who is right.

> I still appreciate people submitting merge requests instead of
> directly intefering with debian/latest.

+1

/Simon
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