I second the idea to acknowledge bug reports posted to the cooker list,
or how about this: We open a new public-postable mailing list called
cooker-bugs where you get an acknowledgement of the submission, but
you're told not to expect a response; this lets us keep a record of
every novice contribution that may become valuable when we later
discover more information through other sources -- sometimes the
addition info submitted by a novice can shed critical light.
If I were in the development/QA crew, I wouldn't want the bug tracker
filled up with bad reports, I'd want to control what gets tracked
by assigning someone to sift cooker-bugs for repeated reports that
can perhaps be put together into a proper bug report worth tracking.
Then, like Mozilla, we put the names of the original submitters on
the ticket so they are informed of the progress on their bug.
it's extra work, but I think it would pay off in the long run.
Further to this, it would be nice if the cooker had two new
cooker-only utilities:
- A 'gripe' button that will compose a message
to send to cooker-bugs while also capturing
essential system information (kind of like the
old windows dr watson.
- A MandrakeUpdate-like ability to incrementally
or selectively upgrade a cooker installation
so you can first ensure you are using the very
latest software before you submit the bug.
More or less I'd like to open up Cooker QA testing to include more
people; the size and complexity of the Mandrake distro is
ever-increasing and it's becoming difficult for the core workers to
test every possible combination. It's /nice/ to get bug reports from
experienced developers, but sometimes by knowing too much, I think
developers can forgive a bug that was "too easy to fix" only because
they were actively monitoring the lists, irc and all, or just because
they have a lot of mandrake experience. More novice users, but those
still willing to take a chance on the cooker, could be useful, but
I think they might get a little discouraged if the process is too
complex (like the Universe, it should be simple, but not too simple ;)
--
Gary Lawrence Murphy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - TeleDynamics Communications
- blog: http://www.auracom.com/~teledyn - biz: http://teledyn.com/ -
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." (Picasso)
