agreeing a policy for maintainers and hackageDB

[Ross Paterson]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 10:05:59AM +0100, Ross Paterson wrote:
> As a few people have noted, we need to agree a policy in this area.
> As I see it, the drivers are:
> 
> * users need to know whether what they're downloading is supported,
>   and if so by whom.
> * maintainers are entitled to control what goes out in their name.
> * allocating version numbers for a particular package name should be
>   the prerogative of the maintainer.
> 
> When something is agreed, I propose to put it on the hackageDB upload
> page and expect people to follow it.  Here's my first attempt:
> 
> 	If the Maintainer field names a person or group, the release as
> 	a whole (including packaging) is the named maintainer's approved
> 	release, which they are supporting (at least for some time after
> 	the release).  Ideally a maintainer would make that clear by
> 	uploading the release themselves.
> 
> 	A Maintainer value of "none" indicates that the package is
> 	not supported.
> 
> 	If a package is being maintained, any release not approved and
> 	supported by the maintainer should use a different package name.
> 	Then use the Maintainer field as above either to commit to
> 	supporting the fork yourself or to mark it as unsupported.

OK, I think there's broad agreement, except for the minor point of what
value to use for unmaintained packages, and most people find it hard to
care enough to settle that issue.  So I'll just go with the above and
clean up later if we ever come to a decision on that point.