The author/maintainer distinction problem (and PEP 621)

[sinoroc]

@pganssle

Write a new PEP to deprecate the {Author,Maintainer}{,-Email} fields in favor of something designed from the beginning to avoid the author / maintainer confusion (and possibly to give richer metadata about the authors).

Would something like the following work?

contributors =  [
  {role = "Author", name = "Me"},
  {role = "Author", email = "@"},
  {role = "Maintainer", name = "Myself"},
  {name = "I"},
  {role = "Designer", name = "Them"},
  {role = "Patron", name = "Us"},
]

While two roles are well-known and already in use: Author and Maintainer, further roles could be defined separately in the future (akin to this). If role is not specified, the default could be set to Author. If role is neither of those two, then the item could be safely ignored until a new PEP decides what should happen with such contacts.

Beyond email, it could also be extended to contain maybe URL, physical addresses, etc.