On Sun, Aug 26, 2007 at 05:36:10PM -0400, Todd Zullinger wrote:
Charles Curley wrote:
Fair enough.
I sincerely hope I didn't come across as shitting on you for not reporting it to bugzilla.
You didn't. Others in other fora have been less polite. I was reacting to them and took it out on you. Sorry about that.
"Comrade Zullinger, you haven't written enough lines of free software this week. Back to your terminal!"
Hehe. I try to bail quickly from places that bark orders at me.
Good. We need more people who will do that.
So if you don't mind, I will determine whether something is "that much to ask" of me.
Nope, I don't mind at all (in fact, I'd prefer that you determine that). I hope I didn't give the wrong impression in my replies. The thing that spurred me to write is the part about expecting maintainers to be subscribed here. That's similar to expecting all users to report all bugs to bugzilla (perhaps a little worse IMHO, since the signal to noise ratio here is much lower than it is in bugzilla :).
It didn't occur to me that someone who maintained one or more packages for Fedora wouldn't also use it, and so wouldn't be on this list. Really.
And since there are more users than maintainers here, the side of the maintainers is in more need of stating now and again.
Yup. Which side you are getting to learn.
Thanks for the thought. No-one has to do anything on this list, except maybe the paid employees whose duties encompass such things.
Indeed. I'm curious about it now and if other tasks don't fill my time and distract me, I may well poke into the mantis package a bit. If it's really fubar'd, it should be fixed or removed. It'd be far better to have you not find the package than to find it and waste an hour or more before just installing the tarball.
I know nothing about mantis though, so I wonder if it could be the sort of package like mailman, where there is a lot that needs to be done after installing the package before it will work? If so, there should be a fedora specific readme somewhere that explains such steps.
There is a Fedora specific README which outlines a short process to go through. I followed it, to no avail.
(Such documents should be mentioned in the description field of the spec so installers know they exist, but that's another tirade!)
(In the case of the above bug, it's also possible that it was fixed in a newer gnome release and it just didn't get closed properly.
Nope, hasn't been fixed as far as I know. Sorry, I thought that was implied when I described the bug as "outstanding" rather than "still open".
I just didn't guess that you were being so specific with your wording (you damn writers ;). If it's still an issue with new versions, then the report could be updated to note that it still applies to f7. Otherwise it may end up getting closed when someone comes along and auto-closes bugs from older releases*. And changing the release version along with a comment something like "Ping! This is still a problem, any news?" may reach Ray at a moment when he can reply or look into it. (And to be clear, that's just a suggestion, I'm not saying you need to do this. :)
Good point.
- I do think that if and when such bugs are closed, they generate a message to the reporter (and others on the CC list) that if they still apply to a current release, to reopen and change the release.
I believe bugzilla sends an email, but don't recall the contents. I have reopened bugs under such circumstances but don't remember if they were in RH's bugzilla or elsewhere.
As you say, probably an upstream bug. Given the likely nature of the problem, I doubt it's a packaging issue. Speaking of "too much to ask", could Mr. Strode enter the upstream issue number or URL and mark the bug appropriately?
Perhaps. It may already be in the gnome bugzilla. It'd just take someone to search there and tag the rh bugzilla appropriately. Ray may or may not have time to do that (I don't know him personally.)
Ah, I was assuming that if Ray decided it was an upstream bug he'd file in their bugzilla (and search prior to filing, etc.). In that case, he'd know the number.
I think that generally, if a bug is likely to be an upstream bug (not a distro-specific or packaging bug), that it should be reported upstream directly. That way it can be addressed and fixed upstream for all distros to pick up when an update occurs. Who knows, maybe the bug you reported has been fixed by another distro maintainer and no one has yet reported it upstream so we can all get the fix.
I had understood that Fedora preferred such bugs to be filed in RH's bugzilla and if necessary the maintainer would file upstream. I don't recall where I got that, and it may have changed since I did.
I would think the packager, especially a person who is both maintaining a package and actively contributing to the upstream project, would be in a better position to determine whether to report upstream than an end user.
He hasn't even taken ownership, so I have no reason to believe he has reported it upstream.
Sometimes this can be caused by bugs getting reassigned as teams at RedHat change members. I'm not saying the bug shouldn't get acknowledged or anything, just offering a possibly reasonable explanation for why it's gone so long without even being assigned.
When someone owning bugs leaves a team, he (or his manager) mass-assigns his bugs to a special management account specifically for the purpose. When someone new comes in or someone else is assigned a package to maintain, management then assigns that person bugs from the special account. Been there, done that.
I know there are other ways bugs can slip through the cracks. I've probably committed a few of them myself. Good management processes minimize that sort of thing.