Re: Good I don't care too much Re: [Bug 594524] Please sync GENtle in Debian sid (main)
Dear Matt,
thank you very much for your reply. I liked reading through your
thoughts and comments and certainly have taken something from them already.
On 09/17/2010 03:07 PM, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 11:50:29AM +0200, Steffen Möller wrote:
>
>> :) it is somewhat of a relief to see that the Ubuntu folks are no better
>> than us Debian people in their communication.
>>
>> I have a colleague using the software I just packaged under Ubuntu, which
>> is why I had hoped to possibly speed up the transition process with a sync
>> request.
This may be the first bit to clarify. Should I have done anything in the
first place or is the flow of packages from Debian to Ubuntu such
automated or well-staffed with volunteers that no manual interference is
required/wanted. This depends on the status of the Ubuntu (freeze or
not) but I was not really knowing about the state Ubuntu was in at the time.
>> The replies I got were rather funny to me, almost offensive,
>> since I find for any willing individual all information to be rightly
>> available.
>>
>> If someone on the list would want to comment, please go ahead.
>>
> Looking at https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/594524:
>
> The first reply to your bug report (which took a few weeks) was a link to
> step-by-step instructions for requesting a package sync.
>
I had through that and used it for a later request of another package.
So the pointer was helpful. What I took home was to use requestsync and
that to understand more would take too much of my time, since all I
wanted was to be nice - to my colleague and for Ubuntu at large.
> The second reply to your bug (after another few weeks) was a specific
> explanation of what information you needed to provide.
>
> You didn't respond to either of these. They were terse (copy and paste)
> replies, but they were accurate and gave you instructions on what to do.
>
And I decided that this was more than I wanted to do and I better
not disturb those certainly well meaning people any more. Also
I had felt that the information requested was well available in my
initial posting. So I did not see the point but felt misstreated a bit,
which I was not, but I lost motivation.
> A few weeks after that, your package propagated into Ubuntu, without being
> expedited:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/maverick-changes/2010-August/006049.html
> ...which made your request obsolete.
>
This was what I had been hoping for.
> A few more weeks, and your bug report was automatically closed because it
> was marked incomplete and you weren't responding.
>
In my perception there was this positive event of the package having
arrived in Ubuntu that was then accompanied with that "you were
unresponsive" email. I was, basically because my question was not
answered the way I thought it would be answered and I was then back
into patience and silence mode. And it was good that I was. But that
email did not arrive with that tone.
> How could we have done better?
>
> - Someone could have responded more promptly to your bug report. Bugs which
> aren't filed on a specific package are swept from time to time, but don't
> get as much attention because there is a lot of noise.
>
> - Someone could have clearly answered your question about whether the
> process could be expedited. It was only implied that if you followed
> the instructions, your request would have made it to the right place.
>
> - Someone could have made an educated guess that you wanted to sync the
> latest version of the source package "gentle" from unstable or
> experimental (wherever it was at the time), and asked you to confirm.
>
This I think is what I had expected, yes. For the timeliness I did not
really care too much.
> - You could have replied and asked for clarification if you didn't
> understand.
>
Right.
> - Since you weren't sure of the process, you could have started by sending
> an email (say, to ubuntu-devel or debian-derivatives), asking someone on
> IRC what to do, or using the Q&A system in Launchpad. Bug reports aren't
> usually the best place to ask questions about how to accomplish something.
>
Without my Debian-training, where we use reportbug for all the
typical administrative communication, I would probably have gone
for the mailing list as you suggested. The -derivatives list was not
really existing at the time, maybe, and is more for the problems
among ourselves, I think. To me, the bug report was the way to
ensure not to bother too many individuals with my request and most
likely I had read a pointer to do so somewhere on the Ubuntu
web pages.
>From your reply I tend to learn what I basically already new, i.e. that
nothing bad had happened. I was nice, or at least tried to be,
and so the Ubuntians were. And users and developers of other
distros just don't read long texts. And what was supposed to happen,
i.e. the transfer of the package from Debian to Ubuntu.
Many thanks
Steffen
Reply to: