Re: Future releases of Debian

["Jamin W. Collins" <jcollins@asgardsrealm.net>]

On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 04:23:29PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 01:08:40PM -0600, Jamin W. Collins wrote:
> 
> > Yes, I do not have access to them for testing or debugging.  I have
> > access to only x86 machines currently.  Thus, I can not adequately
> > resolve problems with my packages on arm or other architectures.
> > This is currently a bug report for Jabber concerning a segfault on
> > the arm architecture, I can not replicate the problem and thus can
> > not resolve it.
> 
> This does not excuse broken, ugly x86isms in packages.

Did I say it excused them?  No!  Please refrain from trying to put words
in my mouth.

> The vast majority of portability problems are NOT confined to a single
> oddball architecture; they may manifest in different ways, but the
> bugs are usually there on multiple architectures at once.  If you
> don't directly have the hardware or experience to debug a particular
> problem, there are several mailing lists (debian-mentors,
> debian-devel, or upstream) where it might be appropriate to ask.  The
> jabber bug in question doesn't even have a 'help' tag -- nor does it
> have a severity appropriate for a bug that renders a package
> completely inoperable on a given architecture.

It doesn't have a "help" tag, but it does have both "unreproducible",
and "moreinfo". The definition of "unreproducible" is:

unreproducible
    This bug can't be reproduced on the maintainer's system. Assistance
    from third parties is needed in diagnosing the cause of the problem.

So, it would seem that the bug was appropriately tagged, and a request
for help was made.  Tagging the bug with "help" would have fulfilled the
help request, but whould not have been as accurrate a tag.  

help
    The maintainer is requesting help with dealing with this bug.
    
I tagged it for assistance as of:

   13 Apr 2003

-- 
Jamin W. Collins

To be nobody but yourself when the whole world is trying it's best night
and day to make you everybody else is to fight the hardest battle any
human being will fight. -- E.E. Cummings