How much personal information is necessary to close a bug?

[Yaakov Nemoy]

On Jan 30, 2008 6:07 AM, Lex Hider <floss at lex.hider.name> wrote:
> I think that meeting is around 4am local time, so I may have to give it
> a miss. Perhaps you could put on the agenda how high the barrier for
> entry is. Not only do I have to create a separate Fedora account aside
> form the bugzilla that I have, I have to give out my personal details,
> and then I have to learn enough about gpg to make a key to sign up for
> the account.

Sometimes people forget that projects like Fedora don't exist in that
dark/gray side of the internet just because it's revolutionary open
source software.  To give you an analogy, think about the details that
go into a property transfer between two businesses.

Both businesses need to be registered with the state = registration is
bugzilla and FAS
A Notary needs to assert the identity of both representatives and
their right to represent their business = PGP key
Full names and addresses need to go on the device of transfer, (or
whatever it's called, aka the contract) = Full address and name.

You're expected to know these things being a citizen of the US (or
similar laws for other countries), and in fact these things should be
taught with civics classes in high school.  If you're really rich, you
have a private lawyer that explains these things, but then a lawyer
would have you just sign the CLA for Fedora, and be done with it.

> If I have to jump through all the above hoops just to close trivial
> bugs, I'm not sure if I'll bother.

Sorry, that's life.  Honestly, it can't be much easier than it is already.

> I can see no reason why anyone would need my address and phone number.
> What is stopping anyone from putting in fake ones.

Theoretically no, but if some bad things happen, like a copyright
lawsuit, the courts will be looking for you.  This isn't a bad thing,
but they just need to see you're a real person, wrote real code or
documentation, and exist at the very real address you represented
yourself as living at.  If that address is fake, IANAL, but I think
that counts as some very minor perjury.

This information isn't exactly public to one and all either.  Red Hat
certainly isn't selling your private details to the highest bidder.

If there's one thing you mention, it's that perhaps all FAS accounts
should get an automatic bugzilla account.  Given the number of steps
to get that done though, it seems pretty trivial.

-Yaakov