Re: dicussion about patches ... ignoring patches make motivation to provide them fall

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 08:29:18AM +0100, Martin Wuertele wrote:
> * Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> [2006-03-19 08:06]:
> 
> > The question is if the problems with the patches and the reason for not
> > applying it will be commented, thus giving the author a chance to modify it,
> > or change his approach to fixing the bug, or if the patch will be utherly
> > ignored, which is an act of total contempt to his author as well as the users
> > affected by the bug.
>  
> If you think not applying a pacht without given reasoning is a "contempt
> to his author as well as the users affected by the bug" you perform an
> unjustifyable imputation as you don't know the, tough not communticated,
> reasons for not applying. Please stop this behaviour, you cannot read

Point taken, altough i believe that there are cases where this is clear. I
have had a case where a patch i submitted to the X strike force for driver SDK
support (allowing build of standalone drivers for a given prebuilt X server)
has been moldering in the BTS mostly without comment for something like 3-4
years now, and the patch which started all this sat over a month without a
single comment, and then two more month.

I am not saying that there needs to be an immediate response, or all patches
need to be applied, but i believe that it is elementary politeness from a
package maintainer, to at least aknowledge a patch or bug report when it is
submitted. 

> peoples minds! Be calm and friendly give the maintainer time and than,
> in a friendly tone, ask for reasons and you will get them. And don't

Yes, ok, but what if this is not the case ? You wait and ask and don't get
reason. 

I understand that a maintainer can be MIA, or have little time, but when a
patch sits without comments and there is uploads of the package for example,
or other maintainer activity, then this is the case i am speaking of here.

> tell me you asked in a nice way, I've read so many of your mails that
> seem to have been sent before you finished thinking and you had to
> apologize afterwards. 

I have indeed asked nicely in person in real life and on irc in both the above
cases, as well as asked in the bug report again, as you could convince
yourself if you looked at them.

But this is scarcely the point here, i am not speaking about me, but was
making a general point :

  DDs who maintain packages should strive to at least provide a simple comment
  to bug reports in general, and patches in particular. If they don't really
  have time to look after the packages or after this particular bug, for
  whatever reason, the more this need is important, as to not reject help
  coming in.

  As for the bug reporter, and the patch submitter, being ignored for a long
  time when it is clear there is activity, is a proof that his work in
  searching for the bug, and in trying (even if clumsily) to find a patch is
  wasted time, and motivation to do so in the future will fall.

This is not something we want to encourage, i believe, as the overall quality
of debian will (and may have already) suffered from it.

Friendly,

Sven Luther