On Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 06:57:30PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote: > Le Sun, Jul 21, 2002 at 11:22:08AM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG écrivait: > > 2) The gnome 2 packages do not automatically read old user > > configurations, and therefore when one replaces (say) the gnome 1 > > version of gnome-terminal with the gnome 2 version, all user > > customizations are lost. This is a violation of Debian policy, and > > a bug. > I hate when people have nothing better to do than piss people off with > "you violate piolicy", when in fact they did a tremendous job to get in > the actual state ... if only you could be more *constructive*. > Sending bugreports is nice, asking them to be kept open, also. But > all the problems you're reporting are upstream problem, so yes you can > file them, we can forward them and tag them until upstream decides to do > something. But the fact is that upstream IS aware of the problem > (several upstream developers do follow debian-gtk-gnome BTW) and that > filing a bug in the Debian BTS will change absolutely nothing ... It's ok that bugs happen; all software has bugs. Saying "this is a violation of Debian policy and a bug" is not an accusation against the maintainer of the package, it's merely a fact. I don't think Thomas was emphasizing that this is a bug because he believes Christian should be thrown out of the project, but because it apparently needs to be stated that this is an open bug in the package. Because what's NOT ok is closing reports about bugs that are not fixed. If the maintainer does not feel himself capable of tackling the issue, fine. That's what the 'help', 'wontfix', and 'upstream' tags are for. Nobody is faulting Christian for having finite time or finite skill. Closing the bug means that the issue is *resolved*, when this is clearly not the case here. Doing so may please the maintainer, who now has fewer bug reports to look through in the list; but it is deceiving, and it reduces the usefulness of the BTS for everyone EXCEPT for the maintainer. Submitters use the list (partly with the help of automated tools like reportbug) to decide whether a new bug needs to be reported; other developers and would-be developers can use the BTS to identify areas where they could help out (and why wouldn't the maintainer want /that/?); even users benefit by being able to see what bugs a package has, because they can make informed decisions before upgrading packages. Closing bugs that are not resolved makes the BTS a less useful tool for all of these parties. > BTW, I rapidly checked the Package Tracking System ... NOBODY is > subscribed to any of the core Gnome package. People are always happy to > complain and send bug reports but never to help by sorting out bug > reports and cie. > I wish you had a more constructive way of dealing with people. Instead > of bashing Christian, you could see that Christian is doing many great > things (too many ?) for Debian, but from time to time he's a bit too > fast in closing bugs because he has to manage a huge number of them. > The good thing to do is to decide to help him... or if you can't to ask > other people to help him. Sure, he could do that himself ... but nobody > is perfect. If Christian has too much to do, could he not ask for help? Isn't that part of the duties of a Debian Developer -- just as it's the duty of a DD to "not hide problems" in packages? You seem to be arguing that because Christian normally does good work, we should not raise the issue when he acts in a manner which is counter to the goals of Debian as a /group/ project. Yet I have not seen any acknowledgement from Christian that what he did was wrong, or that he will avoid doing this in the future! How can it be regarded as 'bickering' when we try to make sure that our members are all playing by the ground rules that hold our project together? Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
Attachment:
pgp5_RMalc7l8.pgp
Description: PGP signature