Re: debugging symbols
On Sun, Mar 17, 2002 at 12:47:53AM +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> This was brought up in the release team meeting on Friday too; it's very
> frustrating for us to be receiving totally useless bugs that are essentially
> noise in the GNOME bug tracking system. It slows down our progress, and
> hinders our triaging efforts.
The flip side of this is that Debian has its own bug tracking system.
We patch, modify, and tweak the code, and of course, we introduce our
own bugs. Therefore, we (the Debian maintainers) want first crack at
the bug reports. This is a big problem with systems that try to
autodetect bugs and send the reports directly to the authors,
bypassing our own support mechanisms.
It doesn't do our users much good to know that a bug is fixed in some
source code somewhere if what they want is a fixed deb.
Note that Debian is unlikely to be alone in wanting to support their
own users -- in fact, people with real, genuine, actual *customers*
are even more likely to want to be in on the support process.
And yes, the potential flaw in the system is that a lazy, foolish, or
asleep-at-the-wheel Debian maintainer can sit on bug reports and horde
information that you want/need. But that's not an insurmountable
problem, since our BTS is publically accessible.
So, maybe the problem here is not that Debian is following its own
policies (many people feel that these policies are what set Debian
apart and make it a Truly Great system). Maybe the problem is that
you're trying to cut Debian out of the loop (semi-inadvertently, no
doubt). If you don't like the bug reports our users send, maybe you
shouldn't be trying to persuade them to send you the bug reports
directly. Maybe, if these bug reports are so useless to you, you
should look into how to get them sent to us instead of to you, and
thereby make it our problem.
> Please, *please*, *please* build these packages with full debugging, or
Debian policy is frozen at the moment, pending the release of woody.
Once woody is released, we can discuss the idea of modifying policy to
allow debugging symbols in alpha/beta packages. I'm not completely
opposed to such a suggestion. But it's not going to happen right
away.
(Note: before you panic -- no, gnome2 will not be in woody.)
Anyway, I hope that in the long term, we can find some sort of
solution to this whole problem that will make us third-party vendors,
distributors, repackagers, resellers, etc. happy.
cheers
--
Chris Waters | Pneumonoultra- osis is too long
xtifr@debian.org | microscopicsilico- to fit into a single
or xtifr@speakeasy.net | volcaniconi- standalone haiku
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