reporting bugs

[Ian Malone]

On 5 November 2011 00:50, Orion Poplawski <orion at cora.nwra.com> wrote:
> On 11/04/2011 05:39 PM, Ian Malone wrote:
>> On 4 November 2011 17:23, Kevin Kofler<kevin.kofler at chello.at>  wrote:
>>> Ian Malone wrote:
>>>> If I filed every bug in the distro in upstream I'd have a dozen
>>>> different bugzilla accounts by now.
>>>
>>> So what? Maintainers are not messengers, they have other work to do than
>>> forwarding the bugs you're too lazy to file directly at the right place.
>>>
>>
>> Is there any point in me reporting any bug in Fedora bugzilla ever then?
>>
>
> Sure, but understand that it may not be as effective as reporting
> upstream.  I think it is useful for tracking purposes and for other
> Fedora users to find (and why I hate the closed->upstream approach).
> Sometimes it really is a bug in the Fedora package or in interaction
> with Fedora libraries.
>

Absolutely agree, which is why my first response is to file in Fedora.
Additionally Fedora will have a particular version of a given package,
the maintainer hopefully knows more than me about differences and the
current development of their packages, part of the role must be to
facilitate communication with upstream. If there's one person
reporting a bug they know nothing about then telling them to go
upstream is fine, if five people have reported bugs in Fedora then
it's probably necessary to take a larger role in coordinating with
upstream.

Unless Fedora believes that the maintainer's responsibility stops at
getting the package built successfully there is a communication
element to the role. This includes things they can do without ever
looking at code, like knowing about how the upstream for their package
does things or knowing particular people to contact.

> But many (most) Fedora packagers are over worked or do this in their
> very limited free time and are almost certainly not as experienced with
> the code as the upstream maintainers.
>

I don't expect a maintainer to fix a bug, I don't really expect them
to post it upstream either if it's just me reporting it, but there did
used to be at least a triage process.


> Yes, I have dozens of accounts in upstream issue trackers.  No big deal.
>  I want the issues I'm running up against fixed as soon as possible and
> filing upstream I've found is the most effective means.  Filing in both
> is even better.  But I won't call you lazy if you don't :)
>

Thank you, I did object to being called lazy on the basis I don't
first file every bug I see in the upstream. Package maintainers don't
have a monopoly on being busy or having other commitments, but they
have volunteered to take on some responsibility.

What would be nice would be the ability to forward bugs upstream from
within bugzilla. Having dozens of accounts you hardly ever use becomes
a maintenance issue: details like the last few times I reported gnome
bugs directly I had to reset my password because I kept getting caught
out by its length limits being different from most others or trying to
sign up for a bugzilla account and finding your email is already
registered, things like this are unnecessary overhead for everyone.

-- 
imalone