Re: Non-related 'Recommends' dependencies - bug or not?

[Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk>]

Christian Perrier writes ("Re: Non-related 'Recommends' dependencies - bug or not?"):
> So, well, in such case, closing with "I think this is not a bug
> because synaptic is recommended by another package in the dependency
> chain" would have been better. Even better would have been to
> investigate the dependency chain and reassign the bug properly, with a
> short note to the bug submitter to explain him how to do such
> investigation himself next time...

I think it is quite wrong for a maintainer to close a bug report just
because they think the bug is due to a problem with another package.

Bugs which are filed against the wrong package should be reassigned.
If a maintainer of a busy central package doesn't have time to deal
with all the reports then I think it's quite fair enough for them to
reassign the bug for a more specific maintainer to investigate.

For example, if a bug about a glibc-generated warning of program
misbehaviour is filed against glibc, the glibc maintainers would be
quite wrong to just close it, but quite right to reassign it to the
package of the apparently offending program without doing any
investigation or even any great deal of thought.

Ian.