Re: A way _not_ to handle bugs
On 5/4/05, Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> wrote:
> On Tue, May 03, 2005 at 01:54:46PM -0500, Adam M. wrote:
> > Adrian Bunk wrote:
> >
> > >grave <-> serious isn't worth a discussion since there's not a big
> > >difference between them (both are RC)
> >
> > You are 100% wrong here. Why do we have bug severities then? Severities
> > are there to inform the developer and the rest of the Debian world about
> > the seriousness of the bug. I tend to stay away from packages that have
> > grave or critical bugs against them before I read the bug report. So,
> > let me refresh your mind about bug severities,
> >...
>
> Let me try to reformulate my point:
>
> important <-> serious or important <-> grave are worth a discussion,
> because if the bug is only important it's not unlikely sarge will ship
> with this bug.
True, though important bugs can still be fixed during the freeze.
> We could have a lengthy discussion whether there are possible scenarios
> where a specific dependency problem might cause data loss (which would
> make it grave) or whether it's "only" a policy violation. (If you are
> using php4-mysql on a web server to write the orders of your costumers
> into a database, couldn't this bug cause data loss?)
It wouldn't be grave just because it broke in my scenario. Data loss
occurs when you think something worked, but it didn't. Or it
corrupted/destroyed your data.
I am ignorant to the actual bug though (haven't tried it myself). If
the combination of php4 amd php4-mysql causes silent failures, then
this is data loss and bug should be grave. If the application craps
out with a visible error(s), or wrong output, then this bug does not
cause data loss and is not grave.
This doesn't mean all bugs are not important (not in BTS severity
sense). I treat all bugs as important and try to resolve them.
> But the practical differences between critical, grave and serious are
> small enough that if I send a bug as grave and you'd downgrade it to
> serious, I wouldn't care.
True, it doesn't really matter for the submitter if the bug is
critical or serious if they only care that version X+1 of package
doesn't go to testing due to the bug and X works. But severities do
matter when you try to prioritize your work. For example, it is
inappropriate for someone to file a critical bug just because they
can't use feature X in program Alpha.
Severties can and should be used to keep more buggy versions from
progressing into testing.
Severities are for practical reasons while many people still put their
emotions into bug reports. This usually ends up with inflated bug
severities.
- Adam
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