Hi Ian,
Ian Jackson wrote:
[...] To reiterate: the purpose of bug reports is to help improve the
software. In Debian, the maintainer(s) are in charge of deciding (in
the first instance) what counts as an improvement, and which
improvements are most important. But they are also in charge of
deciding how this purpose of bug reports can best be fulfilled.
Your opinion would be arguable if helping to improve Debian was the only
use of bug reports, but that is not the case. That use is probably the
main one, but I can see at least 2 more uses:
1. Informing potential users on the software's quality ("*We will not
hide problems*"). Debian has no quality standards for its software
besides being safe and minimally usable, nor even package ratings,
making it particularly important to provide alternative means for
Debian users to estimate whether their investment in a package new
to them would be profitable.
2. Most importantly, to document problems for users of the package,
allowing them to see whether a workaround exists, whether a possible
workaround has already been tried, letting them estimate how long
they'll have to wait for a fix or finding alternative ways to obtain
a fix. Careful users may also try to make sure an upgrade is a good
idea (perhaps using apt-listbugs).
