Re: Forwarding bugs upstream
On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:59:40AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
I really like Russ Allbery's sane words about this topic.
> To argue that is *not* to require or demand that anyone do any work, nor
> to strip anyone of their role. I wish I knew how to avert the seemingly
> inevitable charges of that which arise any time we discuss what the
> maintainer role entails.
I understood the maintainer role as a set of tasks. Mediating between
upstream and user is one part of this task and forewarding bugs belongs
to this mediation. However, real life has turned out that we can not
handle all our tasks with the same priority. If there is a conflict in
the priorisation usually some common sense should be applied. I
consider it common sense to *kindly* ask the bug reporter whether he
feels able to help me in doing one of my tasks to foreward the bug to
upstream himself.
Common sense also applies when deciding whether the bug reporter seems
to be competent enough to do this himself. Usually the bug report
itself will tell the maintainer whether the reporter will be able to
handle it himself (in case of a detailed bug report with reasonable
information), whether the reporter needs extra advise (= is not able to
do the work and I as the maintainer need to do the forewarding myself or
at least enrich the report with extra information) or whatever
reasonable action.
In short: The Debian maintainer is responsible that a bug will be
reported upstream. I don't see a problem if he delegates the actual
work to somebody else who is able and willing to do the job (but please
be nice to the user when asking for this kind of help). Free software
lives from cooperation.
Kind regards
Andreas.
--
http://fam-tille.de
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