Re: on mass bug reassigning

[Luk Claes <luk@debian.org>]

Raphael Geissert wrote:

> I currently don't have enough time to write a script that gathers the
> versions information from the origin package to use when MBR. But here is
> what I believe needs to be done:
> 
>  * Encourage package maintainers to keep the old changelog around (e.g.
> php5's changelog include php4's changelog). So the BTS knows about old
> package versions

This is not practical for packages that are uploaded next to eachother
and where one is dropped. Including a very long changelog is also not
practical...

>  * Write a script that gathers the versions not/affecting a given bug, and
> generates the appropriate reassigning bug (in the form of "reassign nnnn
> package version", or if more than one affected version: "reassign nnnn
> package \n found nnnn version ...").

What's wrong with the assumption that all versions are affected if no
versioning information is known?

>   * Reach a concensus on whether maintainers should be contacted before MBR
> (waiting a specific number of days for their reply before going ahead), or
> not.

I think the best scenario would be that the maintainers reassign and
close the bugs themselves before needing to contact them. Even if they
didn't do it themselves up to the point of decision to contact them I
think it's best to inform them about the bug triage and give them some
time to do it themselves as they should know the best what the status of
the bugs is.

Cheers

Luk