Re: Filing bug reports in Debian (was Re: Debian Stole My Name!)
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 12:23:01PM -0400, Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com> was heard to say:
> His (Christian's) comments were "This has nothing to do with aptitude."
> Then he goes on to talk about update-grub and that I asked for it. No.
> I didn't ask for it. I remember that situation enough to remember that
> one reason I was frustrated was I did what I thought was a normal
> upgrade and didn't specify other programs be run. If it was run, it
> was run by aptitude or a package script (speaking from my perception
> now). Then he goes on to tell me about the postinst_hook and
> postrm_hook.
>
> At that point I'm wondering, "What the heck are those? Why do I care?
> Why is he telling me this?" I don't know if he's just trying to dazzle
> me with bs or to make me feel like an idiot because he knows so much
> and I know nothing.
I've been working with Christian for years on the aptitude package;
he was its translation coordinator before Jens took over. I've never
met him, but the impression I have from email contact is that he's one
of the most humane individuals I've collaborated with in the free
software world. I've certainly never seen him try to humiliate a user
in response to a bug report. He also doesn't usually fiddle with
technical bug reports, because he isn't a coder and doesn't have very
strong technical skills; I'm not sure why he did in this case.
Regardless, I don't see his mail as being at all impolite; just
a little terse.
> What would be wrong with saying, "It wasn't aptitude that did this. It
> was a package you were updating, which could be the kernel or grub
> itself, and the bug would pertain to one of them."?
It's hard, when replying to a bug, to figure out the level of detail
to include. He included enough information for someone to figure out
what was going on if they were familiar with the Debian system. I can
see the point that more information would have been helpful, but this is
an easy mistake to make and I'd hardly call it an insult. (and before
you ask: why don't we, as developers, always include all the relevant
information? Sometimes we just forget that other people don't have it
at their fingertips; sometimes we're in a hurry and biased towards
writing a short response; sometimes we just screw up. Sorry, we're
humans) It's an easy mistake to remedy, though: just politely ask for
more information, as you did in this case.
That's separate from being outright rude. I think we've all done this
sometimes; the unfortunate thing is that since we usually interact with
each user once, the one who gets a snippy reply on a day when we're
tired or out of sorts thinks that's representative of how we always
treat people. In companies where people pay real money for the code,
this is dealt with by having people who are trained and paid well for
the psychic burden of always pretending to be in a good mood. Since we
don't have employees, we don't have that particular nicety in Debian.
> Actually, now that were discussing this, I find that helpful and
> frustrating. Again, I'm saying, "Something is wrong," and he's
> saying, "It's not my job." Then he says he thinks this is what
> happens. Now he's someone who knows the inner workings and I had
> already said basically what he just surmised, but at least he sees my
> point. But rather than pointing me in a direction that would help me
> know what to do, he continues with, "Then something else changed
> it...but I have no idea what did so. The file does not belong to any
> package. Certainly the bug is not, definitely not, an aptitude bug.
> You can't blame aptitude for every problem happening with packages it
> installs."
>
> Do you see why I feel like this was a waste? I took the time to write
> up a bug and explain what I could. I don't know apt or aptitude. All
> I know, as someone who uses those programs, is that I ran one and it
> borked my system. All I get in response is, "Nope, not my package.
> Something else, but not mine."
I can see why you might feel it was frustrating. Particularly if you
automatically assume that the guy on the other end is a malicious,
arrogant jerk rather than someone who's overworked and trying to deal
with a bug that's clearly misdirected.
> > As for the response of Christian Perrier, I'm sure he didn't mean to
> > be rude[2], it's just that the tone is hard to replicate in writing.
>
> And I'm supposed to know this --how?
By not assuming that every slightly terse reply you get is a
declaration of war? We're all imperfect humans trying to work this
out together, and sometimes we file a bug report in the wrong place, or
send a reply that in retrospect was clearly inadequate. In real life
we work these things out with body language and tone of voice, which
aren't available in email, but also by asking for clarification and
for followups, which are. If you don't understand something, ask.
> Okay, I'm being snippy with that comment, but there's a reason for it.
> The point has been made that I need to be nice in bug reports, but
> there's a flip side, and that flip side was my point at the start: a
> developer responding to a bug report has to be nice as well. That
> includes knowing that the bug reporter may not know the program well or
> know all the technical details. That means telling them, in terms you
> are SURE they'll understand, just what is going on.
This is a nice ideal. In the end, it always comes down to a judgement
call. We can't send the entire Debian Reference Manual along with every
bug reply, and it wouldn't be useful anyway. I generally guess what
sort of reply to write, and then adjust my followups according to the
feedback I get.
Please remember that we are volunteers. I spend between 5 and 20
hours, tops, on my Debian work, depending on how much I can squeeze in
around my other activities in my free time. I have spent one hour of it
this week writing this reply to you. If I answered every user question
in enough detail for the most naive user I can imagine to understand
what I meant from my first reply, I would never have time to do anything
else.
> Remember Stargate SG-1? Remember how Carter would get into a tech
> explanation and O'Neill would say, "Carter?" and she'd give him a 1
> sentence explanation anyone could understand? It's the same here.
> don't assume the reporter knows all the tech stuff, no matter what
> their level.
(disclaimer: I've never seen Stargate SG-1)
Carter had writers who could come up with wonderful 1-sentence
explanations that she could pretend to come up with on the spot. We
just have a -user list. :-) That's why Christian pointed you to it:
it's a better use of everyone's time if generalized questions like this
are sent to the user support forum rather than being posed to developers
of unrelated packages.
Daniel
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