Proposed udpates policy change

[Michael Schwendt]

On Tue, 9 Mar 2010 14:20:20 +0100, Mathieu wrote:

> I maintain some niche packages that almost no one uses/no one would
> provide karma for. But if I'm asked for a bugfix, and I do it, I want
> the people requesting it to tell me that it indeed fixes the issue and
> doesn't break anything else. 

Hard to comment on as the scenario is too vague. The bugfix may be
trivial. The testing may be difficult. The added responsibility
requirements ("doesn't break anything else") are scary. The level
of participation the package maintainer asks for may be considered
too much by the user. The user may have moved on already. Do you want
to wait for the next user to find the same flaw?

> Why would I bother if they don't care?

Because other users judge about "your" broken product without contacting
you. That may be ordinary users, who build and spread an opinion about
Fedora's quality. Or more advanced users, who would build from source
tarball themselves and tell their friends and contacts that it works while
Fedora is broken. Or article writers, who review the distribution and may
try "some niche packages", too. The bug report from _one_ user may be the
most you get. Be thankful that somebody has taken the time to contact you.
Once you've been informed about the problem, the user expects you to take
appropriate action. Or else he would not remain a user, but would join and
become a co-maintainer or take over the package. You are the one to offer
something (on top of what upstream offers). Hence users believe that you
have bigger interest than themselves in fixing things.

It may be false expectations from users towards package maintainers,
but it's reality.