Re: master bef1be8: Fixes for "Maintainer:" and related lines

[Glenn Morris]

Paul Eggert wrote:

> However, that node doesn't match existing practice as it goes on to
> say, "Some files in Emacs use 'FSF' for the maintainer.  This means
> that the original author is no longer responsible for the file, and
> that it is maintained as part of Emacs" despite the fact that no files
> in the Emacs source code use "FSF" for the maintainer (either before
> or after my recent patch).

I changed it to use a real email address in 34dc21d.
It seemed harmless to leave the explanation of FSF, for older files
people might encounter. (Or more likely I forgot to remove it.)

> it's quite common to see comment pairs like the following, which are
> the first five remaining instances of "Maintainer:" lines in Emacs's
> .el files (sorted by file name):
>
> ;; Author: Markus Rost <address@hidden>
> ;; Maintainer: Markus Rost <address@hidden>

Harmless duplication that does not contravene the convention.

> All in all I think it'd lessen confusion and simplify maintenance if
> we used "Maintainer:" for contacting current maintainers who aren't
> authors and don't normally read bug reports. Something like the
> attached proposed patch, say?

That's an incompatible change. If I see a file with only an Author
header, I can't tell whether it follows the old convention (author is
the maintainer), or the new one (emacs-devel is the maintainer).

My counter suggestion is to revert bef1be8.