Re: Forwarding bugs upstream
John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
> On 01/12/2011 09:35 AM, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> > You are clearly adding value [… enumeration of many ways the
> > maintainer adds significant value by relaying bug report discussions
> > …]
> Those are some valid points, probably more valid for many packages
> than Bacula (for reasons I'll get into later).
>
> But still, let's say that a Debian developer has X minutes to spend on
> Debian a day. What kinds of tasks that the developer does will add
> the most value to Free Software or benefit the most people to the
> greatest degree?
That issue (use of limited resources) is of course important, and I
appreciate that it is sub-optimal to have skilled maintainers spend
limited resources on what feels like mechanical work.
I would ask, though, that this description:
> * Cut-and-paste monkey with upstream BTSs
be amended, even if only in the maintainer's mental description of the
task, in light of the points raised by Gunnar and others about the value
added by the maintainer relaying information from the user. It's usually
more valuable than merely cut-and-paste monkey, and realising that may
help it feel (a little?) less frustrating.
> I suggest that the last item provides the least value.
Of the items you listed, I agree that yes, relaying bug report
information is often low in terms of value added.
But it does add significant value in more cases than not. At the least,
it adds the value that, if it gets to the point where such a decision
needs to be made, a significant proportion of such valid bug reports
would not otherwise be reported upstream at all.
So, thank you to any maintainer who does this work, and I hope this
thread helps it happen more by making clearer the value maintainers are
adding when they do so.
--
\ “Yesterday I parked my car in a tow-away zone. When I came back |
`\ the entire area was missing.” —Steven Wright |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
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