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Re: Interesting learnings about Guix contributor dynamics that apply to Debian?





On 5/22/25 10:39 AM, Marc Haber wrote:
On Wed, 21 May 2025 22:25:36 -0700, Otto Kekäläinen <otto@debian.org>
wrote:
I would significantly reduce my enjoyment of Debian if we were to move
away from mailing lists and the BTS. Surely the BTS could be a bit
more friendly in its advanced features, but new contibutors can simply
ignore those, and a motivated person mght build a nice web interface
for those.

I would like to keep the BTS with its opportunity to pull up a
complicated bug report in my mail client WITH FULL THREADING.

Please don't make strawman arguments. If you read the links I provided
and the how Guix folks summarized their needs, you can see that
maintaining the e-mail capabilities was one of their main
requirements.

I have seen Debian discuss introducing Discourse to replace the
mailing lists while claiming this "keeps the feeling of a mailing
list". That is so utterly false...

Listen. You're entitled to suggest new tools. I am entitled to say
that the tools we have are just fine. That's the way it is.

Greetings
Marc

Dear Marc,

While I respect your view and understand where you are coming from, Otto's original message is not completely unfounded in my opinion.

I also like bugreport, debbugs, and current workflow, and it follows natural to me (considering I'm both experienced with Debian ecosystem and nearing graybeard territory). However, the initial experience is a bit disconcerting for the newcomers, and the younger developers want a bit snappier experience from my experience, mostly faster mail processing.

I don't think Debian should shove the current infrastructure and rebuild from scratch, but the current one can be augmented and improved. Actually this is a broader issue about Debian's infrastructure, but I'll try to focus on BTS.

I also support Jérémy's opinion of adding another view on top of BTS which provides a more interactive experience over the bug reports.

I see Otto's mail as a chance for honest discussion. Everybody has their requirements, and rightfully so, and they can be laid out and be discussed. I don't believe shutting down discussion is the correct approach here.

As a side note, as I just looked to the documentation (the links at [0]), there's no any examples of a complete mail message for manipulating bugs in the BTS docs. Yes, the reference is there, but seeing an example of how a complete mail message looks for manipulating a bug report will be very helpful for the newcomers and folks who use BTS occasionally. IOW, the man pages are missing an "EXAMPLES" section.

Regards,

H.

[0]: https://www.debian.org/Bugs/

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