MAINTAINER

From NetBSD Wiki

20081116 NOTE: This page is obsolete. pkgsrc now contains an "OWNER" variable that can be set instead of MAINTAINER and means that the person must be asked before (non-trivial) changes to the package. This corresponds to the "Exclusive maintainership" noted below. The still existing "MAINTAINER" variable corresponds to the "weak maintainership" from below. -- wiz

This page collects opinions about what the MAINTAINER variable in pkgsrc should mean. Currently that isn't defined in a way that would make everyone happy. The discussion is mainly about whether it should be allowed for developers other than the maintainer to make non-trivial changes to the package, such as updating it to a newer version.

Contents 1 Gradation of maintainership 1.1 None 1.2 Contact for questions and PRs (weak maintainership) 1.3 Exclusive maintainership (strong maintainership) 2 Vote: What should MAINTAINER without comment mean? 3 Conclusion 4 Weblinks

Gradation of maintainership

None

You don't really care for the package, and you don't want to have anything to do with it.

• set MAINTAINER to pkgsrc-users@NetBSD.org.

Contact for questions and PRs (weak maintainership)

You don't really care for the package, but PRs should be assigned to you.

• set MAINTAINER to yourself.
• add a comment about the "weak maintainership" above the MAINTAINER line.

Exclusive maintainership (strong maintainership)

The package is yours, and you don't want anyone else to touch it.

• set MAINTAINER to yourself.
• add a comment about the "strong maintainership" above the MAINTAINER line.

Vote: What should MAINTAINER without comment mean?

• weak maintainership:
  • rillig
  • tnn
  • abs
  • gdt
  • xtraeme
  • Beket
  • netcap
  • morr
• strong maintainership:
  • reed
  • veego
  • Marc Espie
  • dillo
  • jnemeth

Conclusion

Since the vote has not resulted in a clearly biased result, we should probably split the maintainer into two variables. This had already been discussed on pkgsrcCon 2006, without result, since we couldn't find a proper name for the variable denoting weak maintainership. The proposal I (rillig) can remember was SUPPORTER or even SUPPORTERS.

An alternative might be to call the 'strong ownership' OWNER and leave MAINTAINER to mean weak maintainership.

Weblinks

• http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-pkg/2007/06/ (subject: Consulting MAINTAINER before updating a package)