T.Pospisek's MailLists <tpo2@spin.ch> wrote: > > Exaggerated: the developper is forced to fix bugs but doesn't get > anything in return (as oposed to the commercial world, where you get "at > least" paid) You're forgetting the other driving force behind open source: Ego. The Debian maintainer who fixes bugs becomes known as a maintainer with good packages. Even if the world at large doesn't bow down before him, or even if his users don't know he exists, the maintainer can take some pride in the work he does. > [ ... ] but who does not have the > required ressources afterwards to resolve major issues with it once it is > in. The Debian maintainer doesn't need to fix all bugs himself. Many bugs will be forwarded upstream instead. This is a valid way to handle bugs that are beyond the maintainer for whatever reason (lack of skills or knowledge, lack of time, whatever). > [ ... ] I'd not expect that there would be > significantly more activity under a stronger "responsibility" perspective. Even if the activity is just forwarding bugs upstream, I think it's good to demand a certain level of service from Debian maintainers. The only way to control quality is to assign responsibility clearly and make people accountable for their responsibilities. This goes back to the orphaned packages flamefest/debate from a week or two ago: No maintainer means no responsibility, which means quality goes out the window. > So IMHO no one would really gain anything from that. That's in contrast to > the "..own itch" perspective where the dogma of the "user" would be dissolved > into a co-responsibility: you use it, so fix it and I'll make sure the > fix gets distributed. That's also an excellent way to handle bugs. The maintainer doesn't need to be a programming guru, he just needs to be able to manage the package: bugs, feature requests, patches, new upstream releases, the whole bit. But asking for or accepting patches, forwarding bugs upstream, etc, are all valid ways of handling bugs that *any* Debian maintainer should be able to do. I think anyone who can't perform these basic tasks shouldn't be a Debian maintainer. I suppose now I'm going to have to run for cover to avoid the flames... -- Sam Couter | Internet Engineer | http://www.topic.com.au/ sam@topic.com.au | tSA Consulting | OpenPGP key ID: DE89C75C, available on key servers OpenPGP fingerprint: A46B 9BB5 3148 7BEA 1F05 5BD5 8530 03AE DE89 C75C
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