On Thu, Oct 10, 2002 at 01:51:52AM -0600, Joel Baker wrote: > While this does not break things on Linux, it *does* cause breakage on > NetBSD, due to differences in the script handlers. So far, the number > of packages isn't terribly high - but it's a couple, in under a hundred > packages, which (if it holds - no good way to tell) is potentially a few > hundred packages, before all is said and done. Can you come up with some real figures first? Various folks have tools that run on archive and scan the entire archive for this or that. Perhaps you could team up with one of them to get this check run. Once we have concrete figures about how many bugs will need to be filed, it will be easier to grope towards a consensus about mass bug filing. Also, one way to mitigate a glut of bug reports might be to break it up a little bit. For instance, spread the process out over 5 weeks or so, re-running the scan each time so you don't file bugs that have already been fixed: week 1) all packages with this bug of "required" priority week 2) all packages with this bug of "important" priority week 3) all packages with this bug of "standard" priority week 4) all packages with this bug of "optional" priority week 5) all packages with this bug of "extra" priority Of course, these sets aren't all the same size, but that's not exactly the point of doing it this way; the higher-priority packages are more important to a bootstrapping environment anyway. Also, it gives the maintainers of the many likely affected "optional" packages a good three weeks to notice the coming storm, assuming they update their systems from time to time and use apt-listchanges, or read d-d-c. If they don't do either of those things you're unlikely to be able to get their attention anyway, via any means. You could file a bug today and a year from now it still wouldn't be fixed. The other option is of course just to break up the mass-file into m groups of approximately n packages each. My gut feeling is that "n" should be no more than approximately 25, but I can't articulate my reasons beyond it just feeling instinctually "about right". No doubt others will have differing instincts. I'm sure that for some folks, any 2 bugs against different packages reporting the same thing counts as "mass-filing". But we can ignore those people. :) Anyway, I support your initiative here. Our rules files *should* be conservative in what they generate, so let's get rid of these stupid extraneous spaces. Vim users might want to put the following into their .vimrc files. These settings will make you a better person. ;-) :set listchars=tab:»,trail:· :set list -- G. Branden Robinson | If you wish to strive for peace of Debian GNU/Linux | soul, then believe; if you wish to branden@debian.org | be a devotee of truth, then http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | inquire. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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