Following are the key points while creating and maintaining a package:

• Version Control: ROS supports version control using Git, Mercurial, and Subversion. We can host our code in GitHub and Bit bucket. Most of the
  ROS packages are in GitHub.
• Packaging: Inside a ROS catkin package, there will be a package.xml,
  and this file should contain the author name, description, and license.
  The following is an example of a package.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<package> 
  <name>roscpp_tutorials</name> 
 
  <version>0.6.1</version> 
 
  <description> 
    This package attempts to show the features of ROS step-by-step, 
    including using messages, servers, parameters, etc. 
  </description> 
 
  <maintainer email="[email protected]">Dirk Thomas</maintainer> 
 
  <license>BSD</license> 
 
  <url type="website">http://www.ros.org/wiki/roscpp_tutorials</url> 
  <url type="bugtracker">https://github.com/ros/ros_tutorials/issues</url> 
  <url type="repository">https://github.com/ros/ros_tutorials</url> 
  <author>Morgan Quigley</author>