Russ Allbery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> Packages need to have maintainers -- meaning, someone needs to take >> responsibility for the package. Orphaned packages *routinely* slip into >> stable releases with release critical bugs that have been in the package >> for a year or more, sometimes even introduced by a QA upload. We don't >> know if these packages have users, but we *do* know there's no one in a >> position of responsibility over the packages who's using them and is >> fixing bugs that appear during use! > > After having spent a couple of hours looking at the bug database for > orphaned packages yesterday, my feeling is that what orphaned packages > really need are users who will actually use reportbug.
I think you are right about this. Of course, there are a couple of problems with the way reportbug and the BTS work that I think impact on this. One is that if you have a bug you don't know you need to use reportbug! Sounds silly, but for users coming from the 'doze background, persuading them to use reportbug to file a report is very hard. Second is that you get very little feedback from reportbug. Yes, you get emails telling you that the bug is filed, and yes you often get a really fast response from an active maintainer, but in the worst case you file a BTS report and never hear anything again - and that is *not* encouraging. A mail a month saying "your bug XXXXXXX is still open. N comments have been submitted. In the last month M bugs were fixed on this package. If you don't want any more of these mails, reply to this one" would be positive in this respect. Third: reportbug should start up with a commented example of a good bug report, to give people something to aim for. This could be different each time, chosen from a pool of reports developers had found to be good. And should the submitter of a bug be auto-subscribed to the bug? I think at present it is possible to carry on a long debate on the BTS without the original submitter knowing - which seems to miss the point? cheers, Rich. -- rich walker | Shadow Robot Company | [EMAIL PROTECTED] technical director 251 Liverpool Road | need a Hand? London N1 1LX | +UK 20 7700 2487 www.shadow.org.uk/products/newhand.shtml -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
