closing out old bugs of unmaintained releases

[Paul W. Frields]

On Tue, 2008-01-08 at 09:26 -0800, John Poelstra wrote:
> Jesse Keating said the following on 01/05/2008 04:47 AM Pacific Time:
>  > On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 13:28:32 +0100
>  > Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora at leemhuis.info> wrote:
>  >
>  >> In fact, something like the above is what I always do and did for my
>  >> packages (and had to do, as I'm a package-monkey and no developer).
>  >>
>  >> IOW: if it's not a packaging bug or otherwise specific to Fedora I
>  >> asked the reported to report the bug upstream, as the bug gets fixed
>  >> for everyone then -- that includes other distributions and thus is
>  >> the best for everyone and avoid double work in our current world with
>  >> fivehundred-and-more distributions. If the reported didn't forward the
>  >> bug upstream I did it if the bug looked worth forwarding.
>  >
>  > Except that as a maintainer it's one of your responsibilities to do
>  > some of the upstream filing/tracking.
>  >
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> And for someone where Fedora is their first experience with open source 
> software it is disheartening and discouraging to go to the trouble to 
> file a bug and then be told to that your effort was a waste of time 
> because you "should have first searched for that same bug upstream and 
> then reported a bug if you couldn't find it there."  We're lucky enough 
> that these people ran the gauntlet to get their bug in Fedora bugzilla, 
> let alone expect them to figure where "upstream" is and how exactly to 
> get there.

Couldn't have said this better myself.

> This seems a little reminiscent of the old school "go read the man page" 
> response that helps and challenges some people, while turning off a 
> greater number.  We can't grow a bigger, more vibrant community if we 
> dis the people trying to get involved and help.

+1!  Fedora has come a *very* long way respecting the community of
developers and packagers.  Now we need to get even better at welcoming a
broader community of users, not the least of which are those who take
the time to do that which we passionately implore of them -- "File a
bug! File a bug! File a bug!"

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
           Fedora Project: http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/attachments/20080108/a3fcd278/attachment.bin