Re: Fundamental flaw in bug reporting system

[Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk>]

Adam McKenna writes ("Re: Fundamental flaw in bug reporting system"):
> On Tue, Jul 11, 2006 at 05:16:52PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > It works because it acts as a filter.  Ability and willingness to
> > write a good bug report are correlated pretty strongly with ability
> > and willingness to read and understand documentation on how to report
> > bugs.
> 
> Your statements about correlations seem to be based on your opinions and
> anecdotal evidence, rather than data.

I don't think picking a package and comparing bug reports like for
like across two distributions is `anecdotal evidence'.  Anecdotal
evidence is statements like `well I tried to submit a bug report and
was discouraged'.

Ie, what I'm pointing at is some data.  It's not very well analysed
and you can complain about the implied methodology.

What is your opinion based on ?

> IMHO, there are two important criteria that should be used to evaluate the
> quality of the bug reporting system 
> 
> 1. Bugs get reported in a timely fashion
> 2. Bugs get fixed in a timely fashion
> 
> The amount of noise in the system is really a secondary concern if it leads
> to bugs getting reported faster and fixed faster.

And it is a primary concern if it leads to bugs being introduced more
often or fixed more slowly because the developers are too busy dealing
with bad bug reports.

Ian.