Software maintainer
Encyclopedia
In free and open source software
, a software
maintainer is usually one or more people who build source code
into a binary
package
for distribution
, commit patches
, or organize code in a source repository
.
Maintainers often cryptographically sign
binaries so that people can verify their authenticity.
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
, a software
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
maintainer is usually one or more people who build source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
into a binary
Executable
In computing, an executable file causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instructions," as opposed to a data file that must be parsed by a program to be meaningful. These instructions are traditionally machine code instructions for a physical CPU...
package
Software package (installation)
In package management systems, which are commonly used with Linux-based operating systems, a package is a specific piece of software which the system can install and uninstall....
for distribution
Software deployment
Software deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use.The general deployment process consists of several interrelated activities with possible transitions between them. These activities can occur at the producer site or at the consumer site or both...
, commit patches
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
, or organize code in a source repository
Codebase
The term codebase, or code base, is used in software development to mean the whole collection of source code used to build a particular application or component. Typically, the codebase includes only human-written source code files, and not, e.g., source code files generated by other tools or...
.
Maintainers often cryptographically sign
Digital signature
A digital signature or digital signature scheme is a mathematical scheme for demonstrating the authenticity of a digital message or document. A valid digital signature gives a recipient reason to believe that the message was created by a known sender, and that it was not altered in transit...
binaries so that people can verify their authenticity.