Re: Processed: Reopen: #311233 'man suxterm' typo: "transfering" / who's who

[Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com>]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2006, A. Costa wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 14:59:23 -0800
> Don Armstrong <don@debian.org> wrote:
> 
> > > On the contrary, from my post of of 3/9:
> > > 
> > > 	Instead the above quoted changelog could say something like:
> > > 
> > > 		16:  * fix typo in suxterm.1 (Close-pending:
> > > #311233).
> > 
> > Pending tags should not be set by an upload....
> 
> Sorry, but I'm not a developer. It seems like your replies are meant
> for instructing would-be developers still learning the intricacies
> of Debian's packaging process.

Since this part of the BTS is primarily important to people who are
preparing packages, that's necessarily the context of the replies.

> A redundant recap: the intent of the above hypothetical changelog
> alteration was not to misuse an existing Debian standard term, but
> rather to suggest that a new term might be added, for the benefit of
> changelog readers, to indicate a given bug number is believed to
> have been fixed, but hasn't yet actually been closed on the BTS.

If the bug has been fixed in the upload, then the changelog should
close it. If it's believed to have been fixed (and ideally tested) it
should still be closed, and can be reopened later if the upload failed
to fix the problem. If the upload hasn't fixed the bug, then it
shouldn't do anything at all.

> Note that when I'd attempted to reopen an open bug, it didn't waste
> much time, and is therefore minor; but since this needless reopening
> looked like it had a systemic cause, and many minor wastes could add
> up, it seemed worthwhile to bring up.

The NMUer thought that they had fixed the bug, but apparently they
actually hadn't. Since no one has perfect foresight, I don't see what
they could have done differently.

> I'm afraid to ask, but are you saying the proposed job of my
> hypothetical tag was already part of the current code base all
> along? Then would this mean that the NMU guy for 'sux' (1.0.1-3.1)
> could or should have tagged or written the comment:
> 
>   * fix typo in suxterm.1 (Closes: #311233).
> 
> ...more correctly using existing Debian tags & tools?

No. If the NMUer felt that they had fixed the typo, that's exactly
what they should have written. They then made the NMU which caused the
bug to be tagged fixed.

If they were working on the bug but had not yet made an upload, they
could have caused the bug to be tagged pending to indicate that they
were working on a fix but hadn't yet uploaded the fix.


Don Armstrong

-- 
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
 -- Aesop

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu