Re: search/get bug database, rc bugs excuses, closing bugs
On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 01:19:54PM -0600, Drew Scott Daniels wrote:
> Where might I get a copy of the bug database? Is there any way to search
> the bug database by text?
Sorry, not yet, unless you have an account on master to poke around
inside /org/bugs.debian.org/spool.
> I also noticed that several of the scripts on qa.debian.org that list the
> number of bugs for various packages do so incorrectly. They don't list
> merged bugs as one bug. This may cause problems with various metrics, but
> more importantly does the update excuses script count merged bugs as one?
I don't think that's a big deal; a merged bug is more frequently
reported and it's arguable that you might want to look at more
frequently reported bugs first. Note that there's a parameter
(repeatmerged) to pkgreport.cgi which controls the behaviour there, so
it's not completely unambiguous.
> Is there any policy on when to close a bug besides the Developer's
> reference section 5.8.3 [2] section 6 which says "Once a corrected package
> is available in the unstable distribution, you can close the bug"? I think
> that release worthy (X.XrX+1) bugs should remain open until all the Debian
> distributions have the bug fixed. I think the distribution tags were
> created to encourage bugs remaining in specific distributions to remain
> open.
They were created more as a hack for release-critical bugs than anything
else, IMHO. For non-RC bugs I wouldn't worry about them. The real
solution is proper version tracking, as ever.
> There is also a further problem of packages not being created to fix
> release worthy bugs in older distributions (like potato) which are
> still "supported". In all these cases it seems like policy prefers for
> the bugs, that these packages fix, to be closed. Has this issue been
> brought up before?
It's fairly simple: if a bug needs to be fixed in more than one
distribution then the maintainer should leave it open (possibly with
tags) until it has been fixed in all those distributions. Otherwise it
is left up to the maintainer's discretion to close it appropriately.
Common sense ought to apply.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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