Re: Upcoming Debian Releases
> Bug age is not an appropriate designator of critical.
You're right, it's not. There is, however, no reason for a bug to
sit unanswered for 3 months, let alone 12! Would it be better if I
split it into two groups: "critical" and "really should have been
fixed by now"?
> Enhancement
> requests, design flaws requiring the upstream maintainer's concent, and
> bugs that are currently unfixable but have work arounds, should not be
> concidered critical and "in the way" of a release.
Enhancements are seldom the responsibility of the maintainer and should
be "forwarded". If they are the responsibility, they should either be
done within 3 months or discarded.
All of this software is "free" and so does _not_ require the upstream
maintainers concent. If it is non-free or too big to be done by the
maintainer, it should be "forwarded".
A work-around is a fix, if not an ideal one. Mark it done or forwarded.
The maintainer can keep a personal record of it if necessary, but it can
be pretty well assured to be reported again once the work-around stops
working.
> With reguard to closing bugs, Brian knows my feelings about his, properly
> named, "nag" messages. I prioritize my limited available time for Debian
> based on the twice weekly publication of the outstanding bugs list. I find
> obnoxious little messages like the "nag" to be just one more annoying
> buzzing distraction.
I'm sorry, but if you can't deal with a bug in one form or another within
three months, then you've got too much on your plate. Just think how
obnoxious (to use your choice of words) it is to someone waiting for that
bug to be fixed.
> > - What should we do about packages that still have "critical" bugs at
> > release time?
>
> If these are identified early, and the maintainer, for one reason or
> another, can't deal with it, we should call for volunteers to do the work.
> As long as the fix is clear, it should be doable by release.
Agreed, but that was not the question. If, at release, the work, for whatever
reason, has _not_ been done... What should we do?
> > * No bug reports older than 12 months at release time (bcwhite@verisim.com)
>
> Please, not based on time?
Then what? The phase of the moon? A bug can be so marked if somebody
reports it as serious. This is just to keep them from being forgotten about.
> > - All packages to be in new source format
>
> This should probably be an asterisk item with higher priority. We,
> supposidly targeted this one for the last release and only got about half
> way there. This also might require some "floating" volunteers to get the
> last few converted.
The way I try to consider "-" vs "*" is with the question: If this has
not been fully completed, should we consider delaying the release.
I wouldn't delay the release just because a few source packages were not
in the correct format.
Brian
( bcwhite@verisim.com )
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