On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 9:49 AM, Stefano Zacchiroli <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 08:14:48PM +0200, Luk Claes wrote:
>> > It seems that nmudiff doesn't recognize if you close mutliple bug
>> > reports in one NMU.  Instead of doing his usual "send patch to every bug
>> > report and add patch tag" it then falls back to reporting a new bug.
>>
>> It does recognise it. It used to always open a new bug report, though
>> there was kind of consensus to change it to not open a new bug report if
>> only one bug was fixed in the NMU.
>>
>> I would be happy to have it changed though I guess we need some
>> discussion within and outside the team before doing that...
>
> I can't understand the meaning of the current default: it mails the bug
> log only if one bug is being closed, not if more than one are. What's
> the rationale?

In #370056 and debian-devel[0] the proposed change of default behavior
from "file a new bug" to "follow-up to the existing bug(s)" was
discussed.  There was definite agreement about performing a followup
for an NMU that fixes one bug but differing opinion for one that
closes multiple bugs.

> If I put myself in the role of the NMU received, I would always prefer
> receiving a single mail with a unified patch delivered to multiple bug
> logs, than receiving a new bug log which will need to be triaged (if I
> got the NMU, I'm probably overworked and that would not help).

Either way, you have to spend time understanding the intent of the
mail you get.  With a new bug, you get a single piece of information
to handle: Joe NMUer sent me a patch to fix bugs X, Y, and Z.  With a
followup to all bugs involved, you'll receive one email per bug, all
containing the same information.  De-duplication of the patch was one
of the reasons for filing a new bug when multiple bugs are fixed by an
NMU and I fail to see how handling one email instead of N is harder to
handle.

> The role of bug submitter is not any better IMO: all people subscribed
> to the affected bug logs will not receive the patch that, even if in an
> aggregated way, fixes their problem. The will not notice that until
> someone will triage the new bug log and reassign / split it
> appropriately to the relevant bug logs (most likely, that will never
> happen).

When the NMU is accepted into the archive the people subscribed to the
bug report will be notified about the fix via the automatic "bug
closed" message.  Submitting a new bug to notify the maintainer about
your patch that fixes N bugs in no way affects the notification of the
submitters/subscribers to those N bugs that their problem is fixed.

Notifying the subscribers that there is a patch for the bug is a "nice
to have" but isn't required in the case of an NMU, IMO, especially
since the subscribers will soon have a fixed package to install.  I
think it's more relevant when there isn't an imminent upload.

> Also, as the NMU uploader, you will probably learn the existence of the
> --old option the first time you use nmudiff on something which closes
> more than one bug and (happened to me) only after having passed through
> *this* wishlist bug against nmudiff :-)

You're right that this isn't apparent in the text of the email we
present to the NMUer.  This could potentially be clarified, if current
behavior doesn't change, by using reportbug's Followup-For
pseudo-header.

[0] - http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/06/msg00139.html




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