Hi Pierre,
On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 04:28:49PM +0200, Pierre Chifflier wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 2:01 PM, Pierre Chifflier <pollux@debian.org> wrote:
> > > I'm sorry, but I am not the Ubuntu packager for xtables-addons (nor any
> > > other package, BTW). I see on [1] that my name appears, but in fact, I
> > > only upload to Debian, and somehow (?, cron job or whatever) and
> > > sometimes Ubuntu takes them.
> > > While I of course agree on the reuse of the Debian packaging, I
> > > would appreciate Ubuntu to change the name on the packages so my name
> > > does *not* appear. I think this is a bad thing, causing people to
> > > believe that I do not care of bug reports ([2] and others).
> > As per the specification [1], we change the Maintainer: field for all
> > packages that are changed in Ubuntu, but most of them come unchanged
> > from Debian, and the original fields are used.
> I know that. However, I think this is creating frustration for end-users
> because, in the default situation, it seems no one reads the bug
> reports.
> What also annoys me directly, is that my name appears just next
> to the unread bug reports (25 at this moment !) on [1].
> Specifically, on [2], maybe the field could be renamed from
> "Maintainer" to "Debian package maintainer" or something, to clarify.
I understand that you find this annoying, but it is not practical for Ubuntu
to have different policies for how it displays maintainer information for
each individual package synced from Debian. Some Debian developers feel
very strongly that they *should* get credited for their packages that Ubuntu
imports, always and in all contexts; some feel strongly the opposite, that
their names should not be associated with the package to avoid having to
field any bug reports.
The resulting implementation, as documented in that spec, is the compromise
that was reached that the Ubuntu community felt would best satisfy the
preferences of all Debian maintainers - by showing the Debian maintainership
for all unmodified source packages, showing Ubuntu is responsible for the
binary packages, and in the case of derived packages, crediting the Debian
maintainer while listing an Ubuntu developer (or team) as the source package
maintainer.
If you feel this compromise is not acceptable (any more), it would be a good
idea to discuss this with the Debian community and have Debian as a whole
make a recommendation to Ubuntu about how to represent maintainership. It's
not reasonable for Ubuntu to flip back and forth any time an individual
developer objects to this schema; to change this there would need to be a
clear consensus from Debian in recommending a particular change.
> > We also encourage users to submit bugs to the BTS (probably we should
> > do that better), but you can subscribe to bugs on a package page to
> > receive bugs notifications — fixing bugs will make the package better
> > in both Debian and Ubuntu.
> Sure, as I could also be the official maintainer. But I prefer not to, so
> what I ask is just being clearly identified as not-the-ubuntu-maintainer.
> If someone choses to be, then I would gladly cooperates with him if he
> forwards any bug report to Debian (provided I can reproduce it, of
> course). Again, I think the situation just leads to user frustration:
> bugs never answered, nobody clearly identified to send reports, etc.
So I don't see that removing your name from the maintainer field is going to
remove any problem of unanswered bug reports, here. The reality is that a
great many Ubuntu bug reports go unanswered, and I don't see that this is
likely to change given that Ubuntu *by design* does not have per-package
maintainers.
Now, looking at the bug reports open on the package, it looks to me that the
package may be unusable in Ubuntu because it needs to be kept in sync with
our kernel versions, and no one is doing that (since there is no Ubuntu
maintainer). If that's the case, perhaps it would be better for everyone
concerned to have the package removed from Ubuntu instead?
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
