Re: Maintainer overview

[Tim Cross]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden> wrote:
> Tim Cross <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> 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 the information becomes outdated.
>
> If your email address is secret, then you can't participate in Emacs
> development.  So I think the first consideration is irrelevant.
>

There is a big difference between not wanting your email address
distributed in every copy of emacs and wanting it secret. Obviously, a
secret email address is not much use to anyone.

> The second is true, but this information is for Emacs developers who
> want to know where bugs should be reassigned.  These people presumably
> have an updated Emacs, so it isn't particularly relevant for them,
> either.
>

Why should this information be only relevant to emacs maintainers? If
that is the case, then why have it in the files at all - the
maintainers could just have a private list they use.

Perhaps more importantly, why put this additional bit of work on the
maintainers if it isn't necessary - if we can define an effective
meta-data framework, then this sort of grunt work (i.e. re-assigning
bug reports) could be automated, leaving maintainers more time to deal
with issues that benefit more from their abilities.

Tim