Re: interpretation of wontfix
On Wed, 28 Mar 2018 at 12:17:37 +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> I think "wontfix" is exactly the feature of the BTS that was invented to
> solve the problem I described. The bug is not closed and remains listed
> - so everybody is free to ignore that tag and close the bug.
Is this how most people interpret wontfix? I'd usually interpreted it as
an indication of policy rather than priority: "I acknowledge that this
is a bug, but it isn't going to change, even if you provide a patch".
For instance, if there's a design flaw that people are now relying on,
such that correcting the design flaw would cause regressions that are
at least as bad as the design flaw itself, then that's an ideal use for
my interpretation of wontfix.
In Bugzilla, WONTFIX and its cousins NOTABUG and NOTOURBUG are
resolutions, not tags (you use them by closing a bug as RESOLVED WONTFIX
instead of RESOLVED FIXED), which suggests that my interpretation matches
that of Bugzilla's designers; but perhaps the wontfix tag in the Debian
BTS was meant to mean something different?
I would tend to use the help tag, not the wontfix tag, for bugs where I
don't intend to work on the bug myself but I'd consider applying a patch
(including porting to non-release architectures).
smcv
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