On 24/09/22 03:32, Greg Wooledge wrote:
On Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 11:22:31AM -0400, The Wanderer wrote:
'man bash' cites Brian Fox and Chet Ramey as the authors, and gives an
E-mail address for each. (It's possible that they may be the active
upstream maintainers, as well.)
Chet Ramey is the current upstream bash maintainer. Brian Fox has not
been involved with bash development for decades. Nevertheless, removing
Brian's email address from the AUTHORS section is neither necessary nor
desirable. Everyone knows it's a historical section.
I've been using Debian as my main OS since 1997 or earlier. I've spent
100s of hours reading man pages. Although it's a reasonable assumption
(since there are a lot of man pages with outdated AUTHORS sections), I
didn't know the AUTHORS section is supposed to be an historical record.
Have you got a reference to that somewhere? After all (some) man pages
have a HISTORY section for historical information.
In the case of the bash(1) page, it's actually followed by a BUG REPORTS
section, telling you how to submit bug reports to the upstream maintainer.
That's not common in man pages, but clearly not unheard of either.
As a Debian user, however, one is expected to know how to file bug reports
correctly. It is NOT done by trudging through the man page looking for
the first email address one can find. It's done by using the reportbug
tool, or by following the instructions on the <https://bugs.debian.org/>
web site.
Again, I sometimes report bugs to Debian and sometimes to upstream, and
occasionally email maintainers directly, especially if I can't work out
if any upstream still exists and especially if the software is not (any
longer) in Debian.
How is it expected that a new user will have learnt "how to file bug
reports correctly?" What is the typical path for a Debian user to pick
up that knowledge? What even is the correct way to report bugs, and
where is that documented? I see https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting,
which mentions "Don't file bugs upstream, if you file a bug in Debian"
Perhaps you can point to some documentation discussing whether to report
a bug to Debian or through other channels. Or perhaps a statement
recommending (particularly newbies) to report all bugs direct to Debian.
It seems to be implied, but I didn't see where it was stated explicitly.
I see at https://www.debian.org/support, that after IRC, this list is
the second channel mentioned for people seeking support with Debian.
I believe using phrases like "Everyone knows it's a historical section."
when the OP didn't seem to know that, and "one is expected to know how"
is not particularly helpful. Especially on the channel that is the
first (usable) point of contact for new users seeking support, if they
are not familiar with IRC.
Greg, I'm wondering if you would consider using more friendly and
inclusive language on the debian-user list? So that it's less
off-putting to newbies (in general, regardless of whether the OP is a
newbie.)
In relation to man pages, perhaps everyone could agree that ideally
historical email addresses could be removed from the AUTHORS section and
moved to a HISTORY section. I'm sure we can all agree this should not
be mandatory, but those who feel most strongly about it could contribute
patches...
--
Thanks,
Alex King
