Upstream bugs vs. Fedora bugs: KDE people do it wrong

[Jaroslav Reznik]

On Monday 29 March 2010 13:09:46 Christoph Wickert wrote:
> I am irritated by the way the KDE SIG and the KDE bugzappers handle
> bugs. For most bugs that are reported they demand the reporter to file
> an upstream bug report at bugs.kde.org and set the bug to NEEDINFO. If
> the reporter doesn't respond, the bug is closed NOTABUG or WONTFIX. But
> if the bug has been reported upstream, the Fedora bug gets closed
> UPSTREAM. Ether way, the bug gets closed, no matter if it was actually
> fixed or not.

<Citation from Bugzilla help>
 UPSTREAM
    This resolution should not be used for RHEL bugs. Otherwise, bugs closed 
with this resolution are filed in the upstream bugs tracker or reported to the 
upstream mailing list. This typically includes almost all feature requests and 
enhancements, and most bugs that we don't consider release showstoppers. 
(moving a bugs upstream typically increases the chance that someone will have 
time to look at it, and often the upstream developer or bug owner even works 
at Red Hat - moving things upstream simply allows us to keep everything in one 
place, and work better with open source community developers outside of Red 
Hat. We only keep bug open on redhat.com to track our immediate short-term 
TODO items, or issues with our patches/packaging, or because the upstream 
package in question has poor bug tracking. The main focus of development for 
most packages is the upstream community, even when Red Hat is a big 
contributor to the community.) Some upstream bug trackers: 
http://bugzilla.gnome.org http://bugs.kde.org http://bugzilla.mozilla.org. 
<End of citation>

All upstream closed bugs are still tracked by KDE SIG members! It's just moved 
to the right place - upstream bugzilla!!! We are on CC of upstreamed bugs, we 
are active in upstream bugzilla and we backport fixed issues back to Fedora as 
soon as possible even the fixed bug is scheduled to be included in next KDE 
release.

> 
> IMHO filing bugs upstream is a maintainers duty. We are doing the same
> in Xfce or I do the same with all my packages. The only exception I make
> are feature requests, because I cannot support a request that I don't
> understand or that I am not convinced of. The use of a feature should be
> discussed upstream with the developers because they are in no way
> specific to the distribution, but bugs that affect Fedora need to be
> tracked in Fedora.

The problem is - we can't act as man in middle - it's better when original 
reporter is also upstream reporter = direct communication. And as I said - we 
never let reported alone in upstream BZ jungle! Sometimes even bug bounces 
from Fedora to KDE and back to Fedora - bug is of course reopened. If reporter 
doesn't want to fill upstream bug - we do it (for example he doesn't want to 
create upstream bz account). It's all about communication - we are open source 
community!

> The wiki says:
> > Deal with reported bugs in a timely manner
> > 
> >       * [...]
> >       * If there are bugs which you aren't capable of fixing yourself
> >       
> >         because they deal with intricacies of the source code which
> >         you don't fully understand, then you still need to address
> >         these bugs. It can be helpful to work with the upstream
> >         maintainer of the code, obtain help from more code-oriented
> >         people on fedora-devel, or check other distributions for
> >         patches. Always be sure to post to the bug report what you
> >         have done so that the reporter knows what it happening and
> >         what to expect. It is recommended that non-coder packagers
> >         should find co-maintainers who are familiar with the
> >         programming language used by their package(s), and can help
> >         with such bugs as a kind of 'second line support'.

Of course we try to fix bugs but as you can imagine - KDE is really veeeeeeery 
big projects - it's not possible to understand everything for normal human 
being (except Kevin Kofler ;-). We work closely with upstream - for top 
severity bugs we try even much more - you can check it on kde lists, bugzilla 
etc. Lot of KDE & Qt security bug fixes are coming from our team.

> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_maintainer_responsibilities#Deal_wit
> h_reported_bugs_in_a_timely_manner
> 
> The Fedora KDE maintainers and bugzappers already have a KDE bugzilla
> account, while most of our users don't. Thus it is easier for them to
> file the bug than it is for the user. The maintainer has to act as a
> proxy between the reporter and the developer.
>
> By closing down the bugs, our bugzilla is effectively rendered useless
> because there is no way of searching for bugs that affect our KDE
> packages. Bugzilla is for tracking bugs, not for blindly closing bug
> reports no matter if they are fixed or not!
> 
> I'd like the KDE SIG and their bugzappers to reconsider their policy:
>      1. Forward bugs to the upstream developers
>      2. Leave bugs open until they are fixed upstream and in Fedora

As I cited - it's only one correct bug resolution -> CLOSED UPSTREAM. This bug 
is of course tracked on Fedora side (even CLOSED ones, even upstream ones)!!!

That's our bugs workflow. I think it works very well - and always you have lot 
of ways how to contact us and solve the bug individually - IRC #fedora-kde 
channel, kde at lists.fpo, emails...

Jaroslav  

> Regards,
> Christoph

-- 
Jaroslav Řezník <jreznik at redhat.com>
Software Engineer - Base Operating Systems Brno

Office: +420 532 294 275
Mobile: +420 602 797 774
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