From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andy Wingo Subject: Re: proposal: add "packagers" field (list of strings (names)) to package definition Date: Wed, 02 Dec 2015 13:43:29 +0000 Message-ID: <87zixtezjy.fsf@igalia.com> References: <565D565C.4030208@gmx.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:40932) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a47he-0007lp-RK for guix-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Dec 2015 08:44:15 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a47hZ-0002JH-P6 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Dec 2015 08:44:14 -0500 Received: from pb-sasl0.int.icgroup.com ([208.72.237.25]:60355 helo=sasl.smtp.pobox.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a47hZ-0002Fu-J4 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Dec 2015 08:44:09 -0500 In-Reply-To: <565D565C.4030208@gmx.net> (Florian Paul Schmidt's message of "Tue, 1 Dec 2015 09:12:12 +0100") List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Florian Paul Schmidt Cc: guix-devel On Tue 01 Dec 2015 08:12, Florian Paul Schmidt writes: > ...and encourage its use. The intended semantics is to list people > that have contributed to the packaging effort. The motivation behind > this proposal is that in many free software projects attribution can > be a major source of motivation to get people involved. Having the > packagers be first class citizens in the package definitions (as > opposed to the information being only implicitly available through > e.g. "git blame") would allow things like "guix package" or the > package list on the website to display the contributor's names. Since you ask for opinions, -1 from me :) Currently Guix packages are more-or-less collectively owned. Introducing this field implies to me an introduction of ownership of packages. Ownership has a number of negative effects: it can inhibit casual fixes and it can introduce unnecessary conflicts. The kind of ego-based positive feedback that having a maintainer field would introduce is negative IMO. It is good if people feel attached to Guix-the-project and GuixSD-the-software-distribution, and to a degree they get that by copyright, git blame, and NEWS. Feeling attached to a particular package is not as useful for the project or the distribution. IMO :) Andy