Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling
On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> wrote:
> Bastien ROUCARIES <roucaries.bastien@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Support of debian is excellent but we are less user friendly than
>> ubuntu. For isntance the bug sytem could be made simplier for joe
>> simpler user, using an http interface than reportbug-ng (what should be
>> installed by default for your desktop user) or even mail. I think having
>> a simple bug report form and wizard will really help your user.
>
> Having followed the Ubuntu bugs for many of my packages for several years
> now, I think Debian's bug system is considerably more user-friendly than
> Launchpad. It may not be as *pretty*, and it's not as easy to submit a
> bug, but when you submit a bug to Debian, the chances are fairly good that
> someone will look at it and reply with a detailed understanding of both
> your bug and the package (at least unless you're reporting a bug to one of
> the packages that notoriously gets more bugs than anyone could ever deal
> with, usually about other software, like the kernel or the desktop
> metapackages). Debian's BTS is more friendly in that old-fashioned sense
> that involves interacting with people. :)
Yes for expert not for joe simple user. I do not argue to change your
bug report system by mail that is wonderfull but add an http klayer
will be really nice (think also to entreprise user behind proxy with
only webmail available)
> In Launchpad, for anything in universe, the typical experience is that
> your bug goes into a black hole until a month or two later someone sends
> you some form letter about it.
Not for my package imagemagick autogerated coredump with backtrace are
really really help full and allow to see for instance that bugs in not
in my package but in libtiff or in srvg
>
>> Increasing your quality also, will improve your user base.
>
> I don't think doing what Launchpad does would improve Debian's quality. I
> suspect it would actually make it worse by hiding issues under piles of
> semi-autogenerated bug reports with no information and consuming developer
> time with triage that isn't improving packages.
Mark bug report gerated by web user using a special tag and allow only
maintener like me that optin to get automated bug report. In my case
it will increase the quality.
Bastien
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