Re: Support on fixing bugs.
Torsten Landschoff wrote:
> > Will do. I'm just putting the next release together (taking a bit longer than
> > usual because I'm moving to debhelper).
>
> Ugh. I was working on a new release too. I wanted to send it to you - I will
> not do an NMU as long as I am able to reach the original maintainer. I am not
> that self-confident yet as I am a new maintainer ;-)
Hups? I'm confused. Phil, didn't you wrote to me just a few days ago that
you were giving the ppp package to Torsten?
> I suggested Debian for a server in university and told them all the advantages
> - along with other things of the BTS of course. Too bad they really looked at
> it... They told me that they would not consider such a buggy distribution as
> the operating system for a server.
>
> What's really annoying to me is that I have to agree. There are way too much
> bugs in Debian now. We should address this issue soon because this conflicts
> with out social contract which says:
This is a simple-minded decision. Please take a deep look at the bugs itself.
Like Hamish already said, all major bugs are fixed already. The bug tracking
system contains a lot of bugs that are upstream bugs. They are also present
within other distributions. They just avoid to let the user know.
Please subscribe to debian-bugs-dist and debian-bugs-closed and you will
notice that a lot of bugs are being fixed. There are also people working
on longstanding bugs (e.g. like you ad Othmar, like myself who has fixed
a bug which was about three years old but need a major redesign of the
affected package).
However you are probably correct that there are too many bugs. But also there
are a lot of bugs that are *very* difficult to reproduce, understand and to fix.
Of course, there are also a lot of bugs that are easy to fix where the
maintainer just lacks maintenance for his package(s).
> "we will provide an integrated system of high-quality, 100% free software".
This is true. There is another phrase, too. "We won't hide our bugs."
I feel much better, if I *know* the bugs and are able to fix them myself
if they get too important for me. If I just notice a bug and can live with
it for a while, I just report it, without a fix and without fixing it locally,
just waiting for the maintainer to do his job. Normally this is ok.
Several other distributions just hide their bugs. You can report them, but
they won't get fixed. Nothing is publicaly documented. I'm sorry but I only
have very little confidence for them.
> So we (Othmar and I) thought we will simply do something to get some bugs
> tracked down and started to hunt some bugs. I don't remember why we focused
> on ppp in the first time but it does not really matter.
I guess it's because both of you need it to get on the net. :-)
Anyway, I highly appreciate this effort. I would really love if I could spend
some time as well, besides these package where I need a fix, improvement or
whatever.
> I am hoping we can get an initiative which works on bugs of maintainers that
> do not have enough time to cope with the load of bugs on their packages. Like
> the people who support Linus in developing our kernel - the maintainer as a
> benevolent dictator :)
I feel that initially the debian-qa list was started for this reason.
Quality assurance is an important matter for any piece of software. It is
currently downgraded into a list flooded by the bug tracking system and more
or less dead otherwise. You may want to revive it for your needs.
This is the official description:
Quality assurance is important for a distribution.
This list addresses this quality.
> I think this is a good way to getting started in working for Debian - you do
> not have any responsibility on your shoulders but still contribute to the
> project.
Yes. If you browse through the bug tracking system youll notice that there
are several people provinding patches for various bugs and packages. Tomi
Mietienen comes to my mind suddenly. :)
> I am not that kind of person who complains about something not working he got
> for free. Instead I will try to change it to the better. That's why I like
> free software - it's so much easier to patch a program you have the sources
> for. I did not really have a problem with ppp - most of my problems are with
> SuSE which we are using at university now :-(
Because it is bugfree since there is no public bug tracking system?
I'm not going to comment on this.
Regards,
Joey
--
Linux - the choice of a GNU generation
Please always Cc to me when answering on the lists.
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