As a few people have noted, we need to agree a policy in this area. As I see it, the drivers are: * users need to know whether what they're downloading is supported, and if so by whom. * maintainers are entitled to control what goes out in their name. * allocating version numbers for a particular package name should be the prerogative of the maintainer. When something is agreed, I propose to put it on the hackageDB upload page and expect people to follow it. Here's my first attempt: If the Maintainer field names a person or group, the release as a whole (including packaging) is the named maintainer's approved release, which they are supporting (at least for some time after the release). Ideally a maintainer would make that clear by uploading the release themselves. A Maintainer value of "none" indicates that the package is not supported. If a package is being maintained, any release not approved and supported by the maintainer should use a different package name. Then use the Maintainer field as above either to commit to supporting the fork yourself or to mark it as unsupported.