Re: Maintainer overview

[Tim Cross]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden> wrote:
> Emacs has more than a few bits and pieces that some specific people feel
> ownership to.  However, we don't really seem to have a mechanism for
> notifying these people when bugs that affect their packages show up in
> the Emacs bug tracker.
>
> I think it would be very nice if we had such a list of
> packages/maintainers -- that was up-to-date.
>
> Now, some of the .el files themselves do have Maintainer: lines, but you
> really have to root around, and know that you're supposed to root
> around, to find them.
>
> What I'd ideally like to see is to be able to say `C package TAB' (in
> debbugs-gnu mode, of course) and see what packages a bug report can be
> assigned to, and have the maintainer(s) Cc'd on the existence of the bug
> report.
>
> I think the most pleasant way to do this would be to add a slightly more
> formal Maintainer: syntax.  Grepping though the sources, we find stuff
> like:
>
> vt-control.el:6:;; Maintainer: Rob Riepel <address@hidden>
> whitespace.el:6:;; Maintainer: Vinicius Jose Latorre <address@hidden>
> wid-edit.el:6:;; Maintainer: FSF
> window.el:6:;; Maintainer: FSF
> woman.el:6:;; Maintainer: FSF
> x-dnd.el:6:;; Maintainer: FSF
> xml.el:6:;; Maintainer: Mark A. Hershberger <address@hidden>
> calc/calc-aent.el:6:;; Maintainer: Jay Belanger <address@hidden>
> calc/calcalg2.el:6:;; Maintainer: Jay Belanger <address@hidden>
> calc/calcalg3.el:6:;; Maintainer: Jay Belanger <address@hidden>
> calc/calc-alg.el:6:;; Maintainer: Jay Belanger  <address@hidden>
> calc/calc-arith.el:6:;; Maintainer: Jay Belanger <address@hidden>
> calc/calc-bin.el:6:;; Maintainer: Jay Belanger <address@hidden>
>
> My suggestion would be to change this to
>
> ;; Package-maintainer: calc:Jay Belanger <address@hidden>
>
> The `C package' command could then go through all the .el files, gather
> the package names, and allow TAB-ing over them.
>
> Alternatively, we could just put a new file into etc that lists all the
> packages and their maintainers, which would, of course, be a lot more
> efficient.
>
> --
> (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
>  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/
>
>
>


That sounds like useful improvements. However, can I suggest
abstracting the contact details another layer. Some maintainers may
not like their email being distributed inside emacs source files and
when that maintainer leaves or someone else takes over maintenance,
the information becomes outdated.

Perhaps we could use a address@hidden address which is
redirected to the real address of the person currently maintaining the
package or something similar. This would allow the user to control
distribution of their email address and ensure the most current or
best address is used

Tim