Re: Best use of bug tracker for a complicated situation

[George Danchev <danchev@spnet.net>]

On Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:37:45 +0000, Tony Houghton <h@realh.co.uk> 
wrote:

Hi,

> I maintain roxterm. The source package of that name generates a 
> number
> of binary packages: roxterm-common, roxterm-gtk2, roxterm-gtk3 and
> roxterm (a virtual package depending on roxterm-gtk3).
>
> A user has reported 2 bugs with slightly different symptoms, one for
> roxterm-gtk2 and one for roxterm-gtk3. They're actually the same bug,
> applying to both, and I think also to old versions when there was 
> only
> one binary package, "roxterm". What's the best way to show the bugs
> affect all three? I used:
>
> affects n roxterm roxterm-gtk2 roxterm-gtk3
>
> Would it be better to reassign them to the source package? In my 
> control
> message how would I distinguish that from the binary packages of the
> same name? By appending ":src"?

In this case use the 'found' command for these two (still meant to be 
separate) bugs:
found NNN sourcepackagename/version
found MMM sourcepackagename/version

> I reassigned them both to roxterm-gtk3 and then tried to merge them, 
> but
> the merge is failing with what looks like an internal error involving 
> an
> array where it expected a hash (reported verbatim to owner@bdo). So 
> far
> I've been copying my comments to both bugs.

This internal mishap needs to be investigated. Perhaps owner@bdo will 
provide more information.

> Meanwhile the user has added a comment to both which looks like there
> might be a new, separate bug. So I reckon I should forget the merge,
> continue to discuss the first problem in one of the reports and 
> retitle
> the other report to reflect the possible new problem. Agreed?

Yes, if you feel that these two bug reports appear to be caused by two 
distinct issues, then you should not merge them anyway and
continue to gather more feedback about them as them being diverged.
If at some point you can see that they appear to be caused by one and 
the same issue, you should be able to 'merge' or 'forcemerge' them 
provided certain 'merge' preconditions are being met:
http://www.debian.org/Bugs/server-control#merge

Alternatively you can also use 'New upstream release - fixes issue FOO 
(Closes: #NNN, #MMM)' from the changelog instead or merging them.