bugzilla bugzappers?

[Nathanael D. Noblet]

On 11/03/2010 11:05 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-11-03 at 21:58 -0600, Orion Poplawski wrote:
>> On 11/3/2010 7:02 PM, Orcan Ogetbil wrote:
>>> Maybe it is time to discuss the usefulness of ABRT to Fedora. I think
>>> that it is a great idea for commercial products such as RHEL, but it
>>> obviously did not fit Fedora as is.
>>> Orcan
>>
>> Of the 28 abrt bugs filed against my packages, I think 1 resulted in a 
>> real fix that I needed to apply as a packager.  Another was fixed by an 
>> update.  The rest are piling up.  I don't have the time to fix them 
>> myself.  I rarely get any response to my requests for more info (5 are 
>> in needinfo).  I haven't been able to get upstream to involved.  I'm 
>> seriously considering orphaning pdfedit (14 bugs) over this.
> 
> My question would be 'why'? There seems to be an assumption that an open
> bug report you can't fix is a serious problem; of course in a sense it
> is, but then, it's not as if, if we remove or otherwise change abrt,
> software is going to magically stop crashing. It's going to crash just
> as much. There just won't be bug reports associated with the crashes. I
> guess what I'm asking is what actual harm/damage are these reports
> causing, beyond the time it takes to look at the report and figure out
> whether you can fix it? Why is the fact that people have experienced
> crashes you haven't yet figured out how to fix a reason to stop
> maintaining the software?

If I can weigh in. First off, I have no preference in this and can see
validity in both sides, but I'll share my impressions.

Prior to the introduction of abrt I started wanting to get more
involved. At the time I wasn't sure, and was talking with a friend who
felt the same. After awhile we figured that one way is to report bugs/
or annoyances and help get them fixed in whatever way we could. Soon
after that abrt arrived. I started using abrt and filing bugs very much
willing to help in their triage, analysis and testing. I should add that
I also file bugs when it isn't a crash, but something I consider a bug...

Its been somewhat a disappointing experience. Not because of the % of
the bugs fixed, but because of the % response. I'm not sure if any of my
bugs have been responded to. There are probably one or two. I've been
annoyed that some of the bugs are getting many many CC's added to them
(or the ones I've been added to), but no response. I completely realize
this is a matter of man power so am in no way complaining. However from
my perspective, the question is, do I even bother? In some cases now I'm
not reporting the abrt detected crashes if its in something I figure
won't get much attention, or I have no idea how it happened. For example
I had a handful of Firefox crashing mysteriously. I wasn't even *using*
it when it crashed. If it wasn't for abrt I may not have even noticed.
Now, if FF crashes I rarely report it. I imagine its because I know they
must be getting inundated with these types of reports, and how can they
know I'm willing to help any more than the other thousand of reports.
They can't... However from my perspective as one who files bugs, its
less valuable as I don't see things I report being fixed so why report.
It also lets me know how many things are crashing on my systems. I used
to feel linux was more stable, and in some senses it is, however now I
am starting to see more and more crashes that may have been happening
all along but I didn't know. So I'm not as naive anymore I guess.


I have to say, I have since become a packager and involved in other
ways... and would like to become more involved but won't have more time
for another 14 months.

Just some thoughts...