[Mageia-dev] Contributors using real name/working email? or not? or maybe?

[Buchan Milne]

On Friday, 4 March 2011 19:58:31 Maarten Vanraes wrote:
> Op vrijdag 04 maart 2011 05:50:23 schreef Anssi Hannula:
> > On 04.03.2011 00:51, Maarten Vanraes wrote:
> > > Op donderdag 03 maart 2011 22:58:16 schreef nicolas vigier:
> > >> On Thu, 03 Mar 2011, Maarten Vanraes wrote:
> > >>> Op donderdag 03 maart 2011 22:31:10 schreef Romain d'Alverny:
> > >>>> On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 21:54, Frank Griffin <ftg at roadrunner.com> 
wrote:
> > >>>>> Maarten Vanraes wrote:
> > >>>>>> C. how about we make <packagename>@packages.mageia.org, which
> > >>>>>> could use the maintainers database to forward the email to
> > >>>>>> maintainers (in case of more) (this could also be a packagegroup.
> > >>>>>> eg: firefox at packages.mageia.org could refer to maintainers of
> > >>>>>> firefox, xulrunner, etc...) (this option might just be too
> > >>>>>> complex)
> > >>>>> 
> > >>>>> That is an elegant and excellent idea.
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> Elegant, but as in a changelog, that means the email does not
> > >>>> match/identify/link to the _person_ taking the step of actually
> > >>>> committing/releasing the change, but the team in charge of managing
> > >>>> the package. Is that wanted?
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> Romain
> > >>> 
> > >>> it depends, the nickname could still be kept; and we were talking
> > >>> about having multiple maintainers in the future?
> > >> 
> > >> Except that changelog is not for listing maintainers, but the persons
> > >> who did some changes.
> > > 
> > > but changelog is for committing, not submitting? isn't this a totally
> > > different thing?
> > 
> > I don't understand what you mean.
> > 
> > Changelog is a log of changes made to the package.
> 
> afaik changelog is compiled from svn commit messages? i don't really
> understand how the submit could have an effect on changelog?

Let's go back to the original request:

> >>> Could we use the submitter name in the mail adress like it's done at
> >>> mdv? It helps filter out the packages mail.
> >> 
> >> ie ?
> >> 
> > >From is "Mageia Team" as is the Packager tag of the rpm while we could
> > 
> > use full name from ldap
> 
> Indeed.
> Like back in MDV
> .
> Also, we should use it in changelogs (but with real packager email)
> so that we got nicer changelogs.
> Here it's impossible for end user joe to contact the packager in case
> of problem since there're no emails in changelog
> 
> eg: compare MDV:
> 
> => From Funda Wang <devel at mandriva.com>
> => Funda Wang <fwang at mandriva.org> 1:1.3.14-2mdv2011.0:
> 
> With MGA:
> 
> => From Mageia Team <buildsystem-daemon at mageia.org>
> => tux99 <tux99> 0.12.3-2.mga1:
> 
> We should use the following instead
> 
> => From Joe Clinton <buildsystem-daemon at mageia.org>
> => Joe Clinton <joec at mageia.org> 0.12.3-2.mga1:

So, 'changelog' refers no just to the entries in the %changelog section of the 
spec file, but also the %packager tag in the package, and the headers in the 
mail.

Here are some examples for comparison:

http://lists.mandriva.com/changelog/2011-03/msg00100.php
(note, From tag oringally has:
From: Colin Guthrie <devel at mandriva.com>
changelog entry originally has Colin's and Anssi's Mandriva addresses)

vs
https://ml.mageia.org/wwsympa-wrapper.fcgi/arc/changelog/2011-03/msg00179.html

So, the issues are:

1)What to use in the From tag in the mail to the changelog list.

Mandriva: From: Full Name <devel at mandriva...>
Mageia:   From: Mageia Team <buildsystem-daemon at mageia....>

IMHO, it is beneficial to have the "name" of the submitter of the package in 
the From tag, you can easily, from just looking at the list of mails in a 
folder, see what packages were updated, and if they are packages you maintain, 
who submitted them, without even having to open the mail. Having a generic 
static text here is of no benefit ...

What we use as the "name" of the user is worth discussing, but I don't see any 
reason to limit it to being the username.

I don't see a need to have the email address in the From be dedicated to the 
packager/submitter.

Proposal 1.1:
From: $user{cn} <packages at mageia.org>
e.g.
From: Buchan Milne <packages at mageia.org>

If we want to rather try and build teams who work on specific groups of 
packages, it may be better to have use:

Proposal 1.2:
From: $user{cn} <%name at packages.mageia.org>
e.g.
From: Buchan Milne <openldap at packages.mageia.org>

and have per-package aliases tied to the maintainer database. This may make it 
easier to assign bugs in bugzilla, without having to re-assign bugs whenever 
someone joins/leaves/changes roles.

Additionally, assuming Reply-To is not set, replying to the changelog mail 
would get you to all the contributors who maintain the package. With Reply-To 
set, Reply-All would get you to a mailing list, as well as the alias. In my 
case, I filter mail based on mailing list tags, so this would mean mails about 
my packages would not hit the mailing list folder, but could hit a different 
folder with a better priority.

It might be a bit overkill in some situations (e.g. kde-i18n-
af at packages.mageia.org), but maybe we could look up the maintainer team from 
the package name, and that could be i18n-af at mageia.org or 
kde at packages.mageia.org.

But, if we want to focus on team work rather than individuals, maybe:
Proposal 1.3
From: Mageia %name team <openldap at packages.mageia.org>
e.g.
From: Mageia openldap team <openldap at packages.mageia.org>

Again, we could possible look up the maintainer team name, e.g. "Mageia 
Afrikaans localisation team" or "Mageia KDE team" using the example above, or 
"Mageia Server team" or "Mageia LDAP team" or similar in this example:
From: Mageia %name{cn} <%name{mail}>

But, this loses some of the easy-overview-by-folder-view.

Finally, there is always the totally personal, spam-attracting option:
Proposal 1.4
From: $user{cn} <$user{mail}>
e.g.
From: Buchan Milne <bgmilne at xxx>

Now, which email address this is is another issue. If we are going to offer 
all contributors (anyone who can commit to svn), then we can use a Mageia 
alias everywhere by default, and have these as aliases to the contributor's 
personal email address. However, if a contributor receives a direct mail to 
their contributor address, do they expect to be able to reply from that 
address? E.g., our work mail system does sender validation, so I can only send 
from an address that is an alias on the account which I authenticate as. For 
Mandriva, I ssh port forward into the cluster to send mail from my Mandriva 
alias ...

If users have to reply from their personal address, it defeats the 
anonymity/privacy goal.


My preference: 1.2 or 1.3

2)What to use in the %packager tag.

All the proposals above apply, but let's refer to them as 2.1 through 2.4.

My preference: 1.2 or 1.4

3)What to use in the %changelog section of the spec file

Mandriva: 
Full Name <usermail at mandriva....> %version-%release:
+ Revision: XXX

Mageia:
uid <uid> %version-%release:
+ Revision: XXX

My preference would be that people who are happy to disclose their real names 
be able to have the full name expanded in the changelog entries, however there 
isn't necessarily a requirement to keep a valid email address.

Proposal 3.1:
$user{cn} <$user{uid}> %version-%release
e.g.
Buchan Milne <buchan> 3.5.7-1mga

Porposal 3.2:
$user{cn} <$user{mail}> %version-%release
e.g.
Buchan Milne <bgmilne at mageia.>


4)LDAP implications

4.1)As far as I know, we don't currently use givenName or sn outside 
https://identity.mageia.org at all at present. Within 
https://identity.mageia.org, the givenName and sn are visible to the user, and 
to Account Admins, and possibily Group Admins. All emails sent to the user 
currently use cn, but it may be more personal to use "givenName sn" instead?

Bugzilla uses cn and mail
Forum should use cn and mail

4.2)I am not prepared to do work to remove sn and givenName, if you don't want 
users to have to supply values that will never be exposed, but personalise 
account management communication, submit a patch, or fork.

Users can edit cn immediately on account creation anyway, and always have been 
able to.

4.3)I don't see the utility of having 2 email addresses at present, while we 
don't have aliases. If we are going to have Mageia aliases, let's discuss that 
first, there are more issues than just users who want to use two different 
email addresses for privacy reasons.

However, if we do have aliases, then we will most likely introduce a 
mailForwardingAddress attribute. This would then contain the real email 
address, mail would contain the Mageia address for contributors, and mail to 
the alias would be forwarded to the mailAlternateAddress

Please indicate if this would be sufficient, or if you think non-contributor 
users would require the ability to have a different email address (for 
identity account management, e.g. password recovery, only). Note that non-
contributors mails would be used by bugzilla and sympa. But they are free to 
use a Mageia-specific account/address, no one has ever required it to be a 
personal address that goes to your work server, or personally identifies you.


I don't want to waste any more time on this, and I will not make any changes 
to CatDap for this unless there is consensus on a specification on which I can 
base (manual for now) testing.

Regards,
Buchan