Bug#609409: dh-make-perl: Please could we have a map of canonical emails for copyright refreshes

[Nicholas Bamber]

Package: dh-make-perl
Version: 0.71-1
Severity: wishlist
Tags: upstream


Problem
========
The Debian package group seems to spend a lot of time handling
the update of email addresses, especially for those who have become
Debian developers. This happens in two phases:
1.) On ascension to Debian developer status a mass update of packages
previously done is often executed
2.) Everytime  a package has its copyright refreshed the dh-make-perl refresh
--only copyright invocation rereads the email addresses. The packager really 
needs to go through the generated copyright notice and check the emails.
This is error prone.

Proposal
========
My real beef is 2.) though I suggest my idea might remove the need for 1.)
dh-make-perl should have a mapping of old email addresses to canonical
email addresses (usually @debian.org but not always).
On becoming a debian developer, someone would merely update this mapping
rather than doing the mass update.
On refreshing copyright, dh-make-perl would use the canonical email address
where available and would merge any duplicates.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages dh-make-perl depends on:
ii  debhelper                     8.0.0      helper programs for debian/rules
ii  dpkg-dev                      1.15.8.7   Debian package development tools
ii  fakeroot                      1.14.5-1   Gives a fake root environment
ii  libapt-pkg-perl               0.1.24+b1  Perl interface to libapt-pkg
ii  libarray-unique-perl          0.08-1     Tie-able array that allows only un
ii  libclass-accessor-perl        0.34-1     Perl module that automatically gen
ii  libdpkg-perl                  1.15.8.7   Dpkg perl modules
ii  libemail-date-format-perl     1.002-1    Module to generate RFC-2822-valid 
ii  liblist-moreutils-perl        0.25~02-1  Perl module with additional list f
ii  libmodule-corelist-perl       2.42-1     module to determine modules shippe
ii  libmodule-depends-perl        0.15-1     Perl module to identify the depend
ii  libparse-debcontrol-perl      2.005-2    Easy OO parsing of Debian control-
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl 1.1.1-2.1  parse Debian changelogs and output
ii  libsoftware-license-perl      0.102340-1 module providing templated softwar
ii  libtie-ixhash-perl            1.21-2     ordered associative arrays for Per
ii  libwww-mechanize-perl         1.66-1     module to automate interaction wit
ii  libyaml-perl                  0.71-1     YAML Ain't Markup Language
ii  make                          3.81-8     An utility for Directing compilati
ii  perl                          5.10.1-16  Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 
ii  perl-modules [libmodule-corel 5.10.1-16  Core Perl modules

Versions of packages dh-make-perl recommends:
ii  apt-file                      2.4.0      search for files within Debian pac

dh-make-perl suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information