Re: HEADSUP: mails sent to nnn@bugs.debian.org are NOT sent to the submitter
Harlan Lieberman-Berg <hlieberman@debian.org> writes:
> One model is that the submitters are purely "users" --- people who may
> not have an interest in the inner workings of a technical issue but
> simply want it fixed. These people are best served by the current
> behavior of debbugs: they get mail specifically directed to them, and
> they get mail when the problem is fixed. If they want to check up on
> the progress, they are able to check the web-UI, or intentionally opt-in
> to the (potentially) higher-volume of email by subscribing.
> The second model is that submitters are "contributors" --- that bug
> filing is, itself, part of the development cycle. These people are more
> likely to want to be involved in the process itself, and may actively be
> working towards solutions.
I agree in the abstract, but I do think it's also worth noting that
basically every other bug reporting system I'm aware of defaults to
sending all updates to the bug reporter. So while a good theoretical case
can be made for both models, the weight of expectation around how bug
reports work is pretty overwhelmingly towards the second.
That doesn't mean we need to follow everyone else, but I think it does
mean we should have good reasons for not following everyone else. It will
be a point of ongoing surprise and confusion, so we should probably do the
same thing everyone else does unless we have some clear and defensible
reason to not do so.
(We do have the problem that, unlike nearly all other bug tracking
systems, we don't manage any sort of "account" for the bug submitter. I
think that's a huge feature of debbugs, but it means that people can't
easily change their email address on their account and have that affect
all subsequent updates, or delete their account to unsubscribe from all
bugs in one go.)
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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