I think that the sentiments expressed here are universal to Open Source. Please read on...
-----Forwarded Message----- > From: Scott Carr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: OO - Discuss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, OO - Doc ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [discuss] Re: [users] 1468 bugs > Date: 26 Jun 2002 10:28:05 -0500 > > Sorry for the cross post, but I felt everyone should see this... > > The biggest problem that a developer has with bugs are: is this bug real? At > what times does this bug happen? When does it appear? How often? Does it > affect alot of people? > > Yes there is a big thing you can do. Take a bug that is marked "New". See if > you can get it to mess up the way the description says it does. Is the > description correct? Does it makes sense? Can you add to the description with > more information you found in testing? > > IssueZilla is an insanely helpfull tool if used correctly. It is there so you, > the user can help the developer do what they do best. > > WELCOME TO OPEN SOURCE. You have the power. Proprietary Software companies > have massive bug tracking systems. This is true. I work for a company that has > one as well. You the user never sees it. Because as with the rest of the > software, the bugs are kept proprietary as well. > > Open Source is different, you have access to the SAME bug database the developer > uses to track the bugs and issues for the system. You have the power to change > the course of that development in a very big way. > > I emplore you, the user, if a free minute arises: > > * Open up IssueZilla. > * Search for bugs marked as "New", "Unconfirmed" > * Pick a bug, and pick it appart to the best of your ability. > * Test to see if the bug messes up on your system. See if it blows up in the > way described. > * When you test it, update the bug with your new information or confirm that > everything did exactly as the description stated. > > Each time a bug is updated, changed, or added to an email is sent stating such. > Enough times that a bug is updated, the more the developer will get involved in > that specific bug. > > Yes. The developers are overworked. They need help in figuring out which bugs > to work on. You have the power. ;-) > > Sorry for the long post. Andrew, my friend, don't think I am picking on you > please. I used, you, in this post a lot. I was talking about all users of the > system not just you. > > Software development is not just coding skills. There is alot of planning, > tracking, and such that quite frankly a developer doesn't have time to do. And, > as a side note, 9 times out of ten, the developer doing that job is like the > blind leading the blind. ;-) ( I can say that I am in that category. lol) > > Have fun, all... > -- > Scott Carr > OpenOffice.org > Documentation Maintainer > http://documentation.openoffice.org/ > > > Quoting Andrew Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > > Since I have had eight bugs outstanding since early May, with no sign > > that anyone has looked at them seriously, I thought I'd have a look in > > IssueZilla to see how much work the guys at Sun have got on at the > > moment. > > > > It turns out that there are 777 defects marked as "New" -- which means > > essentially that no one has done anything about them; another 401 > > marked as "unconfirmed", which means the same as "New" but is more > > recent; and another 290 down as "started". > > > > These are just defects, not enhancement requests. > > > > This suggests two things to me: the first is that there has been an > > explosion of bug reports -- many of them genuine bugs found for the > > first time -- in the last three months. That is also visible from the > > numbers in IssueZilla. The second consequence is that most of these > > bugs are not going to get fixed for a long time, and the people > > charged with fixing them are grotesquely overworked. > > > > I have I think six issues assigned to someone called Stefan Balzer. > > I've never heard from him and I think I now understand why: it turns > > out there are 497 issues assigned to this one developer that are still > > marked New, Started, or Unconfirmed. The earliest new one goes back to > > January. There's no reason to expect this backlog will ever be cleared > > entirely. > > > > I'm not chewing on this one person. There's no doubt he's working very > > hard in an almost impossible job. But I think there must be > > something wrong with the system when so much work is assigned to one > > man who clearly can't manage it all. Of course it is possible that > > Issuezilla is not up to date. It's also possible that not all the bugs > > are serious: I see that someone has marked as P1 a difficulty changing > > the numbering scheme in picture captions. > > > > Can anyone suggest an answer to these problems. "Write code yourself" > > is neither sensible nor useful. I can't hack on Open Office, and > > neither, it appears, can anyone else outside of Sun Microsystems. If > > nothing else, this shows up the hollowness of a great deal of open > > source propaganda. So what can people practically do? It's easy to > > seee that the whole thing will grind into uselessness if these > > probelms aren't solved. > > > > > > -- > > Andrew Brown > > http://www.darwinwars.com Pick your product and become involved. KenF -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
