Dale Scheetz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Suggesting, even strongly, that it is proper proceedure when submitting a > bug, to research the bug reporting system first, and provide useful > information second, doesn't seem onerous to me, and has several practical > uses for the bug submitter, as well as the maintainer.
I disagree. When I am doing an upgrade, I may notice a number of bugs. Perhaps I can log on to a terminal next to the computer I'm upgrading and submit bug reports. However, I do not have time to check the bug logs and webpages (which may be out-of-date, remember). Sometimes (often, actually, for me) the Internet connection is slow. I use Debian at work and I'm not paid to research the Debian bug logs when, for instance, X suddenly breaks because KDE has removed the /etc/X11/Xsession file. (Still haven't received a reply to this one yet, and it's in hamm!) > Merging bugs is not that hard, but it also doesn't provide any bookkeeping > advantages to the maintainer. The bugs still get reported in the > "problems" report separately. Nags still come separately. This requires > that the maintainer keep records of which bugs have been merged. Well then we ought to fix those reporting mechanisms. > I am only suggesting that we make clear that the socially correct way to > report a bug involves adequate research on the part of the bug reporter. We can SUGGEST this as before. However, I will be Very Upset if people start complaining at me because I filed bug reports without checking the webpages first after a particularly frustrating upgrade experience that took three times longer than it should have because people delete me config files or fail to put a "read" at the end of their postinst and important information goes whizzing by the screen. > This "requirement" provides additional service to the user at the same > time that it provides the maintainer with more chance to fix the problem. I feel that I'm already helping out the project by reporting a bug. I often don't have time to figure out the problem and end up deleting packages if they're non-essential -- or doing some quick hack to fix it. BTW, while we're on this topic, I am ASTOUNDED at the number of packages that display messages in postinst but don't prompt for Enter keypress -- the messages then scroll by. Even though policy requires a prompt. -- John Goerzen Linux, Unix consulting & programming [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Developer, Debian GNU/Linux (Free powerful OS upgrade) www.debian.org | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Visit the Air Capitol Linux Users Group on the web at http://www.aclug.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
