What does one do about a package maintainer with an attitude problem?

[Jonathan Kamens]

What can be done about a package maintainer with, for lack of a better 
term, an ongoing attitude problem?

Here are some examples of interactions I've had with this individual. I 
am trying to be circumspect because I'm not trying to engage in public 
shaming, but I really need some advice...

The maintainer closed an abrt crash report about a package with 
INSUFFICIENT_DATA. He didn't actually ask the reporter of the issue for 
any additional information before closing it. I asked why in the bug, 
and he responded, "No steps to reproduce = closed bug. Why should we 
have to ask as it takes valuable time?" Leaving aside for the fact that 
I think he's wrong about that to begin with, I posted my own 
reproduction steps in the bug and he didn't reopen it.

I filed another defect about the same package because one of its dialogs 
provided several pieces of incorrect information about a particular 
configuration setting and how to change it. He responded, "Oh, that 
screen is wrong, we don't actually use that configuration setting. 
Here's the setting you actually need to use, and how to examine or 
change it from the command line." Then he closed the defect with 
NOTABUG. I responded and pointed out that surely it was a bug that the 
dialog gave incorrect information about both the value of the setting 
and how to change it, and surely it was a but that the setting could 
only be changed from the command line. He ignored my comment and did not 
reopen the bug.

I filed another defect about the same page explaining exactly what I had 
done to cause the issue I was reporting. He closed the bug with 
INSUFFICIENT_DATA, without any comment about what exactly he found 
lacking in my reproduction steps. I didn't try to argue with him, 
because, well, I'd seen by this point how much good that would do.

I am reluctant to criticize the volunteers without whom Fedora would not 
exist, but at the same time, I think this package maintainer is doing a 
poor job of maintaining this package (and, I assume, the others he 
maintains), doing a poor job of providing feedback about issues like 
this to the upstream maintainers, and scaring away end users from filing 
defects about real issues.

Is there anything that can be done?

Thanks,

   jik

**
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/attachments/20130722/a057adda/attachment.html>