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On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:29:32 -0400 |
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Seemant Kulleen <seemant@g.o> wrote: |
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> To that end, it's been brought up that perhaps the metadata.xml files |
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> are partly to blame, in that they imply that the package is maintained |
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> by a herd. There is not maintainer-team listed, just a herd. |
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> |
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> So, I would like to propose that we make this distinction clearer in |
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> the metadata.xml files. I'm interested in thoughts that people have |
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> on this, but please do cc: me in your response to be assured that I |
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> read it. |
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I must admit I've assumed that the herd entry in metadata.xml is a |
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reasonable fall-back if the maintainer entry is missing or the listed |
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maintainer is away/not responding. This is implied by |
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http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/metastructure/herds/index.xml which |
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requires <herd> but not <maintainer> - also the description of |
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<maintainer> says "Besides being a member of a herd, a package can also |
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be maintained directly" which implies the herd is the default maintainer |
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if maintainer is not present. |
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The herds project description says, "The herds project aims to ensure |
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that the growing number of ebuilds do not overwelm (sic) the gentoo |
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project. To this end the herds project aims for the development of |
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infrastructure that will help manage the collection of ebuilds". This |
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clearly indicates herds are supposed to have a maintainer role. |
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A quick scan of the tree shows that some 6k+ packages have no |
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maintainer entry. |
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It would be useful to know how many people think herds are not |
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maintainers - if only a few people think this then I suggest it would |
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be better to accept the common interpretation of herd as a group of |
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people who can maintain a package. |
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-- |
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Kevin F. Quinn |
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