Debian and Bug Management
Bugs look like a big industry these days. Debian spends years
squashing them... after Ubuntu has spent months on the same business.
I was visiting the Ubuntu site recently. Ubuntu, just as Knoppix, is
based on testing. Well, I don't know exactly, but I figure if there
is some unstable, after a 3 week freeze, a good part of unstable must
have entered testing at the time of release.
Here is Ubuntu's bug list as of today:
# Open (23546)
# Critical (19)
# Unconfirmed (11655)
# Unassigned (17371)
# All bugs ever reported (80006)
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs
So, there are 11,891 confirmed bugs. That's a lot of bugs! Many more
it seems to me than a single man can handle. So, how does Klaus
manage bugs? Are there really as many as Ubuntu claims? I do
understand they try software on many different hardware
configurations -- and laptops and WiFi are certainly a headache --,
but it still looks like a lot to me. One wonders how Patrick
Volkerding will manage to clear them out with his changelogs for
current being empty, five months after the release of 11.
<ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/
ChangeLog.txt>
If Ubuntu clears all the bugs in testing, why isn't Knoppix based on
Ubuntu and released with a relatively bug-free testing? How does it
take Debian years to get from testing to stable after tenth of
thousands of bugs have been cleared by Ubuntu, Knoppix, Kanotix,
Sidux, and all other Debian derivatives working apparently for the
common goal? What's left for Debian to do exactly, except assembling
packages for unstable?
When a non-programmer tries to figure out bug management, he doesn't
have to scratch the surface very long before questions arise. Is the
situation any clearer for developers?
For now, bug management in Debian and Linux in general seems a
complete nonsense.
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