Re: Gnome bug 94684

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

zhaoway <zw@debian.org> writes:

> The package maintainer is a volunteer, and he knows you are also a
> developer. That said, why don't you report the bug directly to the
> upstream, instead of insisting on this (bureaucratic) procedure of
> reporting bugs to debian then waiting that debian developer to forward
> upstream while both of you debian developers are pretty sure it's an
> upstream issue? I agree that if you're a noname random clueless mere
> user then the package maintainer shouldn't just close this usibility
> bug blindly.

There's a good reason.

First, it is the sort of thing that might well be correctly solved in
the Debian package and not upstream; that is, the best solution might
be to provide a Debian upgrade path rather than a Gnome upgrade path.

Second, I can't keep track of who "upstream" is for all the Debian
packages.

Third, the BTS is an exceptionally useful placeholder for "work needed
here".  If the bug remains open in the BTS, then it serves to indicate
the existence of the problem until its solved, and someone might
actually fix it.  With Christian Marillat's excessively eager
bug-closing, one would never even know of such things.

I'm happy if Christian doesn't have the time or expertise to fix the
bug himself.  He should leave it as a bug, or forward it.  But "I
don't know how to fix it" is not a reason for closing the bug.

Thomas