Re: Bug#4164: Ferret extended description has blank lines
I agree with Brian that micro-bugs should probably be reported to the
maintainer, just because it takes more work to contact the reporter and
close the bug than to fix it. However, in this case the reporter has to
keep his _own_ bug tracking system, if he wants to make sure that the
maintainer actually fixed the bug. This may or may not be a big deal,
depending on the responsiveness (read, speed and verbal skills) of
the maintainer. Also, the reporter then takes the moral responsibility
of (a) having wasted a third person's time who may chance across the bug
(it takes time to identify a bug), and (b) having wasted someone else's
time reporting a bug.
I agree with Lars that the bug tracking system is not a shame pole.
I agree with Dale that trivial (or incorrect) bugs give a bad and unbalanced
impression of the distribution.
I agree with Ian that we can't afford to let bugs go unreported because
they might be publicly visible (that's actually a lot of help!).
And I also agree with Ian that debian-user is a bad, bad place to report
bugs because of its traffic.
Having to do with psychology, it seems to me there is another advantage
of using the bug tracking system, and that has to do with the
less-than-perfect side of humans: all of Debian's developers are
busy folks who need to save time. If someone mails a developer a message
regarding a trivial (or maybe not so trivial) bug fix, and he deems it
unimportant, he might be tempted to tell the reporter to forget it.
This leaves these possibilities:
A. the reporter agrees it was silly and defers to the maintainer, and no
one else is ever bothered by this.
B. the reporter agrees it was silly and defers to the maintainer, and someone
else does find the same bug, thereby wasting his time and _really_
giving the Debian distribution a bad name because of real bugs.
C. the reporter doesn't agree with the maintainer, takes the bug to the
bug tracking system, thereby deliberately turning up the heat on the
maintainer, and potentially causing a mini-war.
So, except where the ratio of
triviality-of-bug / responsiveness-of-maintainer
is near 0, or (better) where the reporter realizes the maintainer
has his own motivations for fixing the bug right away, I agree with Ian that
the right thing to do is to log the bug. I believe the bug tracking system
may be the single most important aspect of the Debian system.
Even when a reporter isn't sure that an event is a bug, he should report
it, since this eventually leads to FAQ's which can then be aired and
resolved :-).
(I now feel guilty for not having always used the BTS myself in the past.)
Best regards,
Susan Kleinmann
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