From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Thompson, David" Subject: Re: proposal: add "packagers" field (list of strings (names)) to package definition Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2015 09:09:31 -0500 Message-ID: References: <565D565C.4030208@gmx.net> <87zixtezjy.fsf@igalia.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:49513) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a4869-0002QU-Fs for guix-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:09:39 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a4868-0002ph-Fc for guix-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:09:33 -0500 Received: from mail-yk0-x22b.google.com ([2607:f8b0:4002:c07::22b]:35533) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a4868-0002pa-9y for guix-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 Dec 2015 09:09:32 -0500 Received: by ykba77 with SMTP id a77so47183681ykb.2 for ; Wed, 02 Dec 2015 06:09:31 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <87zixtezjy.fsf@igalia.com> 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: Andy Wingo Cc: guix-devel On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 8:43 AM, Andy Wingo wrote: > 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. +1 - Dave