Hi Ian,
Ian Jackson wrote:
[...] To reiterate: the purpose of bug reports is to help improve the
software. In Debian, the maintainer(s) are in charge of deciding (in
the first instance) what counts as an improvement, and which
improvements are most important. But they are also in charge of
deciding how this purpose of bug reports can best be fulfilled.
Your opinion would be arguable if helping to improve Debian was the
only use of bug reports, but that is not the case. That use is
probably the main one, but I can see at least 2 more uses:
- Informing potential users on the software's quality ("We
will not hide problems"). Debian has no quality
standards for its software besides being safe and minimally
usable, nor even package ratings, making it particularly
important to provide alternative means for Debian users to
estimate whether their investment in a package new to them would
be profitable.
- Most importantly, to document problems for users of the
package, allowing them to see whether a workaround exists,
whether a possible workaround has already been tried, letting
them estimate how long they'll have to wait for a fix or finding
alternative ways to obtain a fix. Careful users may also try to
make sure an upgrade is a good idea (perhaps using
apt-listbugs).
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