On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 02:09:51PM +0800, zhaoway wrote: [...] > upstream issue? I agree that if you're a noname random clueless mere > user then the package maintainer shouldn't just close this usibility > bug blindly. Well, actually I am a noname random clueless mere user. But I don't seen, why a bug-report made by a debian-developer should be treated differently?
Imagine Developer A responsible for a certain package and Developer B finding an upstream bug. If B reports directly to upstream, the bug won't show up in the buglist of the debian-package. Two days later I find the same bug and will open it in the Bugtracking-System. Developer A will report it upstream now, so upstream will get two bug-reports. Personally I see no advantage of upstream getting two reports for one bug instead of one. For me it would have been better, if Developer B had reported it to the debian bugtracking system instead of reporting it to upstream, since the upstream-bug is clearly a debian-bug too. And now Developer A decides "It's not my fault" and closes the bug. A week later, someone else hits the same bug, looks at the bug-tracking system, checks that he has the most recent package and finds out that there is no open bug fitting his problem. So he opens a new one, because the bug DOES exist. Developer A closes it again. A third user might open it again. (to be continued) So IMHO a bug is a bug, no matter who reports it. And if it is closed without being fixed that's just plain wrong, it just might be reported again and again. And by being closed and opend again and again, people reporting the bug will get frustraded. I know people who say "I reported bugs, spending time invesigating which package to blame (which is not always clear) and perhaps writing and sending a patch. The bug-reports and fixes were just ignored, I never even got an answer why they didn't use my patches or close the bug some other way. So it was a waste of time and I don't waste my time any more." Well, they were not talking about debian-bugs, but that is what is at stake: a developer ignoring bugs might one day find out that people don't care to give him bug-reports or spend less time giving him good bug-reports. But I am just a mere user, so perhaps you should just ignore my posting? -- CU, Patrick. "Never run on auto-pilot" - The Pragmatic Programmer
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