Apps maintainer -- do you want your name/email address in a public place

Charles Wilson cwilson@ece.gatech.edu
Mon Nov 5 17:08:00 GMT 2001


Christopher Faylor wrote:
> I suggested to Robert that we should have a private list somewhere where
> people maintaining the setup infrastructure could access it.
> 
> Robert suggested adding a field to setup.hint which would never show up
> in setup.ini, like: 'Maintainer".
> 
> I sort of like that idea but it means some work for the maintainers
> themselves.

This seems okay to me.  *One* point that both Robert and I agree on is
that the -src package (after unpacking and patching) should contain the
setup.hint file.  Also, rules under discussion for new packages
*requires* submission of a setup.hint file with new packages.

So now the setup.hint requires a Maintainer field.  Fine.  (Of course,
someone could *directly* access
ftp://my.favorite.mirror/pub/cygwin/latest/ncurses/setup.hint, but if
they KNEW enough to do that, then we're obviously not talking about a
newbie...)

> 
> So, we've also been discussing that the list could be public.  I'm
> certain that if the list was public it would be consistently abused --
> people would be sending me private questions about groff, for instance.
> This is why I've always been adamant about not making this info public.

I don't mind the information being *accessible* by a motivated person --
all of my README's list me as the maintainer.  But, at the very least,
the fact that someone found that information means that they did, in
fact, at least SKIM the README file.

e.g. I *like* a small barrier.  A web page with package<-->maintainer
makes abuse too easy.

> 
> Now, of course, you could put words on the list like "Do not contact
> these people for help, use the mailing list instead" but my experience
> with the cygwin to-do list perfectly illustrates that this will be
> consistently ignored.

You bet.

I vote for non-public.

--Chuck



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