Re: Debian doesn't have to be slower than time.
Brian White wrote:
> So, the next obvious step is:
>
> Q: Why don't developers fix their bugs?
>
> In continuing with obvious things...
>
> A: Because they don't want to.
>
> And there are many reasons for this. Many developers can't be bothered to
> work on bugs that aren't affecting them personally. Some don't even seem
> to read their bug mail.
As far as I'm concerned noone has any business having such an attitude
and a package in Debian at the same time.
> I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that there is a huge proportion of
> developers reading my comments and thinking things like: "If you don't
> like it, leave!"
Not me, I agree with you.
> And that, my friends, is _exactly_ what I'm talking about. "It's my way
> or the highway." It seems we've forgotten that somebody's conflicting
> opinion is a source of ideas. True strength comes from the differences,
> from learning from and working with those that see things in other ways.
I don't think that absentee maintainers are adding any strength to
Debian at all though. Anything we can do to either motivate them or
get rid of them is a good thing. (Yes, this means that if anyone is
thinking about standing for DPL and has some concrete proposal for
coming up with a process to identify these people and kick them out of
Debian, you'll probably get my vote.)
> It's things like this that drag the whole project down. There is a group
> of really amazing developers in Debian; they do us, the project, and the
> world proud.
Yes let's not lose sight of that. A lot of those people have been
working on RC bugs all weekend and doing a fine job.
> Now, it's no good complaining unless you can offer some suggestions on
> how to improve things.
>
> - Drop packages with RC bugs after a month; don't wait for a freeze. If
> it's a base package or anything that simply can't be dropped, revert to
> the previous version without RC bugs after a week.
We don't currently have sufficient information to be able to revert
changes to base packages always, and it can sometimes be very hard to do
so, and a great deal of the time RC bugs in base packages can't be fixed
by a reversion to any known version. However, we currently have *3* RC
bugs in base (and some 30 in standard), so that is not currently a big
deal.
Dropping buggy packages proactively, if that's what it takes to motivate
people, seems like a good idea. It will lead to even more bug severity
inflation though. Maybe it's not something to worry about right now,
since that's about to start happening anyway in the context of the
freeze.
--
see shy jo, uploading a fix for 5 RC bugs, four of which are 160 days
old and have had no comment from the "maintainer" whatsoever
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