Re: Proposal how to handle mass bug reports (was: Re: Bug Terrorism?

[Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@datasync.com>]

Hi,

	I have a few comments on this.

 2) Lintian bugs: Yes, the maintainer should make sure that the
    package passes Lintian checks. If they do not, however, they
    should expect to see bugs reported about that.

	Lintian should not produce errors about things which are not
   bugs (if it does, the report can be reassigned to Lintian); I see
   no reason not to report bugs just because the author has access to
   a bug checking tool and has not yet taken advantage of it. 

	So I move to strke the last sentence of clause 2 of this
   policy proposal, and replace it by
    "For this reasdon, Lintian detected bugs are justified (However,
    if this is a recent Lintian check, please refrain form mass
    submission of reports"

 3) I agree that all automated bug check scripts should go into
    lintian. However, I am not comfortable with Policy prohibiting
    reporting bugs for this reason. What if Lintian maintainers are
    unresponsive? Do we continue to distribute a buggy distribution?

    As long as it is understood that deprecated does not mean
    prohibited, it may be acceptable language, but I tend to toning it
    down.


	While I do indeed sympathize with the victims of bug
 terrorism, I think we should not over react; and as our goal is
 quality, we should examine very carefully any prohibitions on bug
 reporting in Policy (I am slightly uncomfortable with Policy
 prohibiting bug reports as a concept); and we should err on the side
 of caution.

	I would rather see spurious reports that can be closed rather
 than a buggy distribution that can't have bugs reported because of
 Policy being laid down today.

	manoj
-- 
 "*Real* wizards don't whine about how they paid their dues." Quentin
 Johnson (quent@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu)
Manoj Srivastava  <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E


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