[maemo-developers] Email addresses in debian/changelog

[From: Eduardo Lima (Etrunko)]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 10:17 AM, Jeremiah Foster
<jeremiah at jeremiahfoster.com> wrote:
>
> On Feb 17, 2009, at 1:50 PM, Eduardo Lima (Etrunko) wrote:
>
>>
>> I have a slightly different use case that pretty much resembles the
>> described above. I've been maintaining quite a few packages for a
>> while where the maintainer email is the address of a mailing list
>> @garage.maemo.org. Would it be ok to leave it like that or it goes
>> somehow against the debian "best practices manual". In the end, it is
>> connected to not only one, but all the people who are subscribed to
>> the list.
>
> I can see how this would be a good idea, but can we add a group list
> in addition to have an individual packager's email?
>
> For example, I work with the debian-perl team and we co-maintain about
> 1,000 packages. So when a bug comes in we track it and we all can act
> on it since we all get notified. But in the changelog we have both the
> name of the person who changed things in the package and in the
> control file we have the group email address, like this;
>
> ---
> changelog
> ---
>
>   libtest-file-perl (1.25-1) unstable; urgency=low
>
>     * Initial Release. (Closes: #512774)
>
>    -- Jeremiah C. Foster <jeremiah at jeremiahfoster.com>  Tue, 10 Feb
> 2009 17:09:18 +0100
>
> ---
> control
> ---
>
> Source: libtest-file-perl
> Section: perl
> Priority: optional
> Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7)
> Build-Depends-Indep: perl (>= 5.6.0-12), libtest-manifest-perl (>=
> 1.14), libtest-pod-perl, libtest-pod-coverage-perl
> Maintainer: Debian Perl Group <pkg-perl-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org
>  >
> Uploaders: Jeremiah C. Foster <jeremiah at jeremiahfoster.com>
>
> This shows that bug reports will go to the _maintainer_ of the
> package, i.e. Debian Perl Group but the person that physically made
> changes to the package is listed in the changelog. This is good
> because if there is a bug we can find out why it was introduced, or
> who fixed it, or when it was added and by whom. This increases
> accountability and transparency, both good things I feel.
>
> So, if we want to be closer to debian and to increase transparency, I
> think we should make sure the person who last touched the package put
> their name in the changelog. We can always add the group email address
> to the control log.
>
> How does this sound?

Yeah, except for the Uploaders field in debian/control, we've been
doing exactly what you said. The debian/changelog file includes the
name of the person who changed the package while in control we have
the mailing list.

Best Regards, Etrunko.

-- 
Eduardo de Barros Lima
INdT - Instituto Nokia de Tecnologia
eblima at gmail.com