Re: Old, stale bug reports (bug triage)

[Ben Finney <bignose@debian.org>]

Felix Dietrich <felix.dietrich@sperrhaken.name> writes:

> What is the etiquette dealing with seemingly forgotten bug reports?

You should start with a message to the bug report email address. That
will reach both the current owner of the report, and the package
maintainer address.

> […] to have another look at the report and decide for an appropriate
> action; may I close the report myself or set e.g. the "wontfix" tag;
> something else?

Closing the report should be done only if that is clearly the
conclusion. As a newcomer you should not do that except where there is a
clear statement that the report has nothing further to be done.

Same with setting a “wontfix” tag; that is an expression of the
maintainer's position, and so it needs to be clearly expressed by the
maintainers.

You can begin with just a “What's the latest on dealing with this
report?” message. More often that you might expect, that prompts someone
to give an update on new information that never made its way to the bug
report.

-- 
 \          “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world |
  `\  would also change.” —Mohandas K. Gandhi, _Collected Works_, 1913 |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney