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Re: Forwarding bugs upstream



"brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> writes:

> I've noticed a trend lately that I am often asked to forward the bugs
> I report to the Debian BTS upstream, either by the maintainers or
> automatically by a bug script. I believe, and I continue to believe,
> that maintainers should forward bugs upstream instead of requiring (or
> strongly encouraging) users to do so.

+1

> I understand that maintainers' time is limited and that forwarding
> bugs is not an enjoyable task. But I also understand that having a BTS
> account for the upstream BTS of each of the 2405 packages I have
> installed on my laptop (not to mention my other machines) is simply
> not practical. I also don't have the benefit of the rapport that a
> maintainer has with upstream and knowledge of upstream practices.

Yes, I agree with that position. It is even more reasonable when one
considers that the person who has chosen to be a maintainer for Debian
package ‘foo’ has some amount of obligation to have an account with the
upstream BTS for ‘foo’, whereas an arbitrary user of ‘foo’ does not.

> I try very hard to make my bug reports simple, clear, and well-defined
> (often with testcases) to make it easier for them to be forwarded and
> fixed, and if they're not, I'm happy to clarify or test so that they
> can be. And I try to submit patches as my time and abilities permit.
> If it happens that I need to be added to the CC list of the upstream
> bug report to assist in fixing it, I'm usually fine with that if
> asked.

Yes, this is all a fair expectation of the user by the maintainer, in
exchange for being the contact point for the package in Debian.

-- 
 \     “To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to |
  `\                   unlearn old falsehoods.” —Robert Anson Heinlein |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney

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