On Fri 19 Aug 2022 at 13:57:29 -0400, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote: > Hello, > > I have noticed that some Debian bugs are ignored for a long time, > sometimes even when the person who submitted the bug offered a patch. > The Debian developers/maintainers sometimes don't even reply and > therefore never explain why the proposed patch cannot be applied. Why > is that the case with Debian developers/maintainers?
AFAICT, there isn't any requirement for a maintainer/triager to engage with each and every submitted bug report. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/pkgs.en.html#bug-handling Each report is unique and so is every maintainer. Therefore it is not possible to generalise with certainty on the reasons for not getting an immediate response. Neither should a user have any expectation of a timely interaction, nice though it may be to be get further involvement from a maintainer. Reasons for the perceived "ignored" status might be: * The maintainer judges that the bug affects very few users. * The maintainer does not have the resources to deal with the bug. * A solution is already in hand and awaiting upload to unstable. * The maintainer puts the report on the back burner and forgets about it. * The bug is low down on the priority list. * The maintainer sees the bug as a user issue and not an issue with package quality. * The maintainer has little or nothing to contribute that would lead to the report progressing. * Fixing this issue is not worth the effort, if possible at all. -- Brian.
