Bug#499833: chccwdev cannot set device offline in Lenny
> Given that, what are the guidelines for when to file the initial bug
> report directly with upstream vs. when to file a bug report with Debian?
It's mostly a question of what's most effective.
The kernel team is already drowned in bug reports and has very little
manpower to deal with relatively minor or very specific issue, especially
not for the less popular arches.
There are very few Debian-specific patches in the kernel, especially not
for s390. So any s390 kernel issue is almost certain to be an upstream
issue.
Besides that I'm *not* saying your original report was wrong. But based on
the information in it (and its lack of progress) I'm now suggesting that
contacting upstream directly is probably most efficient.
In this case my (not so) humble opinion as a Debian Developer is that there
is zero benefit from having a DD acting as a middleman for this issue.
I've done quite a lot of work with kernel upstream myself, so I think I'm
a fair judge of that.
So the general rule is to report bugs in Debian, but there is no rule that
says a Debian Developer cannot refer you to upstream developers.
Also: rules are nice, but one should always use ones own judgement.
The rule is there to avoid having upstreams swamped with distro-specific
issues. As we've determined that's unlikely, there's no reason not to
contact them directly. The same is true if a user is himself certain an
issue is "upstream", especially if there's no progress on a Debian BR.
The main thing is to get things done. Whatever works without annoying
people (volunteers) is good in free software.
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