Re: [PROPOSAL] Origin and Bugs support
On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 10:35:58PM -0800, ferret@phonewave.net wrote:
> Would it be technically feasable for a VAD (value-added distributor) to
> be able to tee a bug report, that is have it go to them, AND go to Debian
> with a flag stating that the VAD also has the bug?
It is technically feasible to *allow* that. It is not technically
feasible to *force* it. We have no control over what bug tracking
system redistributors use. Nor do we have control over what bug
reporting tools they provide to their customers.
Note that *nothing* we do provides any control over manually submitted
bugs -- those go whereever the user decides to send them. We can
control the behavior of the automatic bug-reporting tools that we
provide, and that's really all we can do. We can't force users to use
these tools, we can't prevent redistributors from replacing the tools,
and we can't prevent redistributors from hacking all the packages to
override the Origin and Bugs fields.
In other words, we have no way to control what "baddies" do with
Debian. The best we can do is make it easy and convenient for
"goodies" to do the right thing (whatever that may be). The entire
discussion about trying to prevent "bug report hoarding" is futile and
moot -- we have no control over that, and it's pointless to pretend we
do.
Now, my understanding is that the primary purpose of the Origin and
Bugs fields is for the convenience of add-on vendors, like Helix.
Extending it to help resellers like Storm would be nice, but is not
the primary focus. And extending it to try to prevent bug hoarding by
less friendly resellers takes us into the realm of pure fantasy, and
is an utter waste of time to even discuss.
It seems to me like it would be more productive to focus on the
unresolved issues we *can* control, like what happens when the fields
are missing. (Do we assume it's a legacy package from an earlier
release, or a locally-built package?) And, for that matter, whether
(and if so how) we want to support friendly resellers in addition to
add-on vendors. Those discussions should be far more productive than
lengthy debates about whether we should "allow" things we can't can't
prevent....
--
Chris Waters xtifr@dsp.net | I have a truly elegant proof of the
or xtifr@debian.org | above, but it is too long to fit into
| this .signature file.
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