Bug backlog - now and future. Some proposals.

[Bill Davidsen]

Jon Stanley wrote:
> First, let me apologize for not answering for a week.  This is not an
> account that I generally watch (though I should have subscribed from
> the account that I *do* watch in order to post this - my fault
> entirely).  For the record, the account that I do watch is jonstanley
> AT <google's popular mail service>.
> 
> On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 5:37 PM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com> wrote:
> 
>>  I would suggest that the time to fix them is now, *instead* of a
>>  release. To clear the backlog by *fixing* the bugs, not by writing
>>  clever scripts to mark them CLOSED:WONTFIX or send notes to bug
>>  submitters to update the version to keep the bug open (unfixed) for
>>  another two releases.
> 
> That would be the ideal solution.  The problem is that with the pace
> of Fedora releases, with an older bug, we can't be sure that the
> reported issue has actually been fixed without any action on the part
> of the maintainer.  Fedora frequently re-bases applications to current
> upstream releases, where a lot of work goes on.  There is simply not
> the manpower to determine if the reported problem actually still
> exists or not.
> 
>>  I read them, and I find lots of ways to make unfixed bugs exit bugzilla,
>>  but no indication that bugs will actually be fixed in a more timely fashion.
> 
> Unfortunately, as a triage community, I don't think that we're in a
> place to do that.  We think that what reporters really want is a human
> to acknowledge that they have reported a bug and there's a human on
> the other end that has evaluated it.  To that end, I encourage
> everyone to become involved in the BugZappers project - anyone can do
> it.  See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers for more.
> 
>>  I think you need a "deadline scheduler" approach, if a bug in a package
>>  isn't fixed by some (reasonable) time after it's reported, it should be
>>  evaluated, and unless it's waiting on external info it should be marked
>>  as TRIVIAL, AVOIDABLE, or RECOVERABLE (all FIXLATER), or mark the
>>  package as UNMAINTAINED. Then release the UNMAINTAINED packages as a
>>  separate group in the next release, the way "extras" used to be.
> 
> This is in theory a great idea.  I don't think that we're to that
> point - yet.  I just ran a report for bugs that were created in
> January (in February we had the GCC 4.3 rebuild that would skew
> numbers a bit).  There were 1956 bugs reported against all versions of
> Fedora, 1219 of which are currently closed - that;s 62% of them that
> are fully dealt with.  Seems like a good percentage to me.  However,
> we also have 468 bugs from that time period that are in NEW that need
> some love.
> 
>>  In other words, if the package is still usable by most users, document
>>  the bug as trivial and live with it, and if a major bug isn't fixed, the
>>  reason doesn't matter. Developers enjoy adding new features more than
>>  bug fixing, or become too busy to maintain. Good intentions are nice,
>>  but they don't buy you a beer.
> 
> There's the old saying "don't attribute to malice that which can be
> explained by incompetence".  It's a well known fact that in Fedora,
> many of our package maintainers are *not* developers - they rely on
> upstream  to actually fix any bugs that may exist (as should happen -
> all of our work should happen upstream - whether the Fedora maintainer
> actually *does* the work upstream is irrelevant).
> 
Sounds as if people not bothering to report bugs is going to continue. 
If no one will fix them, or check that some new upstream version will 
fix them, and you don't intend to stop rebasing packages or put them in 
some documented unfixed category even if the developer doesn't fix bugs, 
then what does reporting a bug do to justify the effort?

My view is that there is currently a disconnect between reporting bugs 
and getting them fixed, if the maintainers are the only ones who are 
going to do something, then the user might as well bypass Fedora and 
complain directly to the developer. At least that way they will know 
about it.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot