Requesting a change to the BugStatusWorkFlow: Closed/UPSTREAM

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 01/20/2012 12:31 AM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
> For the record, I am referencing
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/BugStatusWorkFlow#CLOSED
>
> Currently, the official bug lifecycle includes the following phrase:
> "The resolution UPSTREAM can be used by maintainers to denote a bug that
> they expect to be fixed by upstream development and naturally rolled
> back into Fedora as part of the update process. Ideally, a comment
> should be added with a link to the upstream bug report."
>
> I've seen quite a few bugs lately closed with this resolution (mostly in
> the Evolution and GNOME projects for me personally). It seems to me that
> this is terribly useless in terms of informing users when their bugs are
> fixed.
>
> Essentially, when closing this bug as UPSTREAM, we are communicating to
> our users "This will get fixed. Probably. And it will get pulled into
> Fedora eventually. Probably." Most people, when they can actually be
> convinced to file a real bug report (even through ABRT), are doing so
> because they have an issue with the software and want to know when it's
> fixed.
>
> Closing things upstream requires that the reporters (who already likely
> had to be coaxed to file a bug in the first place) now also have to
> manually choose to go and create an account on an unrelated bug tracker
> if they want to follow along on the resolution of the issue.
> Furthermore, it makes it very difficult for the developer working on the
> problem to communicate with the original reporter.
>
> I feel that it really should be the responsibility of the package
> maintainer to keep tickets open in Fedora until upstream produces a
> release that fixes them. This way, the maintainer at least can act to
> coordinate requests for additional information to and from upstream.
>
> So I propose that we should remove the above language from the
> BugStatusWorkFlow page and eliminate the UPSTREAM resolution from our
> vocabulary. Yes, it's results in marginally more work for the package
> maintainer, but I think that it's a worthwhile goal to avoid
> discouraging users from filing bugs.
>
> I know I'm getting tired of filing bugs on projects that I know are
> never going to inform me when it's fixed. I don't much enjoy wondering
> if the next yum update with the non-descriptive summary "New upstream
> release 1.1.2" will just happen to include the fix I am waiting for.
>
> I'd love to hear your thoughts and counter-arguments.

Full ACK. A very nice summary describing the non-helpful nature of 
"CLOSED UPSTREAM".

One detail is missing: Bugs having been reported through ABRT and having 
been "CLOSED UPSTREAM", will cause abrt to further not to report these 
bugs. Instead, ABRT will walk users through its end-user side forms and 
download, but in the end will "exit" silently and will not report 
anything to the package maintainer.

This is an act of rudity/unfriendlyness towards the end user, who had 
intended to be cooperational by reporting a bug and had invested his 
time and resources to report an issue.

Ralf