On Mon, 12 Jul 1999, chris mckillop wrote: > So, in my efforts to be useful..... > > I would like to help hunt out and squash some of the bugs currently > listed on bugs.debian.org. However, it would seem that a little caution > is in order. How should I approach submitting the fixes I perform? Should > I simply do them as a patch sent to the maintainer or can I repackage them > and dupload 'em? Also, can I just start nailing bugs I think I can > chase out or is there a more formal method of declaring war on a given > bug? With people talking about release, I figure more and more of us > should be approaching the huge number of outstanding "issues" listed. > > Now, the other thing I could be doing is adopting some packages. > What do people think? Time better spent making what we have run better > or time spent becoming a full maintainer of something?
It may be helpful for everyone (including yourself) to start out fixing the bugs that you feel you can fix. I know this helped me become more familiar with the Debian packaging tools and how things are done in general. Once I tackled a few bugs (I'm an Alpha porter, FYI, so bug squashing is my primary duty), I moved on to maintain two packages. The experience of patching things helped me greatly in maintaining my packages now. As to how you should handle bug fixes and patches, please submit them to the maintainer via the bug tracking system. I rarely email the maintainers directly, fyi, but it can be done if no responce from your BTS submission is found in a few weeks. Source NMUs are a last resort for us since the affect of such patches on other architectures is often hard to predict. I know I only do a source NMU if I haven't received a responce from the maintainer in over a month or two. In short, direct your efforts to where you feel you could be the most helpful. If you choose to adopt an orphaned package right away, feel free to email to the arch-specific lists prior to duploading the package to see if they can compile it. Most of us are friendly folk and would be happier if we can pre-test the package before upload rather than submitting bug reports after the fact :-) C
