Re: Automatically closing bugs

[Andreas Tille <tille@physik.uni-halle.de>]

On Wed, 23 Jun 1999, Dale Scheetz wrote:

> I'm not sure how closely you conformed to the "format" for the "fixes"
> field. My memory says that it should look like:
> 
>   * Removed foo, fixes: #19243, #18994, #45545
> 
> You used caps on the f and left out the :, either one of which might be
> critical...I never followed what the final decission on this format was.
> You might also need to experiment with "fixed" over "fixes" as the tag.
I'll try it once more with the xteddy package.
 
> In any case, let us all know what you finally discover as the "proper" way
> to do this.
I'm not very experienced with such kind of things.  I relay on the
choice of experienced developers.  But the real flaw is in my opinion
that the format is not made as public as necessary.

I see the situation as follows:
* Most developers has a job to deal with and which consumes much time.
* The debian development is done in the limited spare time to support
  the project which enables more comfort for their work.
* It's hard to follow the changes in the packaging/development stuff.
* I personally read the policy and development documentation from the
  state of the end of 1997.
* I didn't have the time to read it over and over again.
  For instance when I read the documentation the suggested way to
  build a package was `sudo build`.  OK, the new development tool
  says itself use `debuild` ... that's easy.  Also the tool calls
  lintian automatically but lintian suggests to not to run it as
  root.  How to do that when using `sudo debuild`.
  OK, that are changes, good changes and necessary changes!
  I really like them and are happy to use such a high quality
  system.
* But I think we should have a kind of a hotline where all these
  changes are announced as short an precise as possible.

For instance:

dpkg now can fix bugs automatically.  use
  * fixed: #<bug_no1>[, #<bug_no2> ...]
in changelog

This keeps developers up to date.  Or 

new packaging method.  use
  debuild
instead of
  build
and do ??? to get lintian running not as root

So we have to find a way that developers can follow the line of
the development with a minimum amount of time.  I have to admit that
I can't follow each dicussion in the mailing list about policy and
so on.  But we have to ship really necessary information.

Oh yes, and the information email have to be marked with a certain
tag to avoid that a developer deletes this mail without reading.

Just my two cents.

Kind regards

          Andreas.