severity wishlist On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 3:29 PM, Goswin von Brederlow wrote: > Package: xscreensaver > Severity: important > > The xscreensaver package has 120 bugs going back over 9 years that are > just rotting in the BTS without attention. Some of them are tagged > security, some tagged patch. A lot of bugs have not been modified > since shortly after they were reported.
Hi Goswin, The BTW can probably need some triaging. I am aware of (hopefully) all bugs there though, and there is nothing that really demands attention. There are a lot of wishes, patches that should go upstream or down the drain - we don't want to carry the support burden for them - and some are graphic drivers issues. > > I sad to say but you are not doing as good a job maintaining the > package as you should. Maybe you aren't that interested in > xscreensaver anymore or you don't have the time or any number of other > valid reasons. But fact is that bugs are being left to rot in the BTS. I am maintaining the package as I have been doing over many, many years. Security problems are taken care of immediately and upstream releases are packaged in due time. The number of bugs have been very stable over the years. I don't have any strong motivation to work much more intensive on it than I have done, that's for sure. Some bugs can sure be closed, but why is that important to you? They are there mainly to help the maintainers, and people contributing. Granted, I am sure many bugs can be closed though, or moved to wishlist. It is just not the highest of my priorities, and nobody else has stepped up to do it. Hey wait - one guy mentioned some willingness a few weeks ago - maybe we are lucky, I will follow that up. > For example #403557 should have been tagged more-info and eventually > closed as unreproducible 9 years ago and is still there tagged > security. Are you not able to tag it as more-info? If you are unable to help because of technical issues, we can probably figure that out. It is not like the maintainer has to do everything and nobody else can help. > > So I urge you to please find a new maintainer to either take over (in > the worst case) or simply work alongside yourself to help clean up the > backlog of bugs in this package. This is not how it works in practice. Anyone interested in the package will help to maintain the package, sending patches against the VCS etc. I don't see why nobody can just help out triaging bugs. People helping out over time can become co-maintainers. If I don't do much useful any longer, I can pull out and the other people will remain maintainers. This is how I got into this. If they are not genuinely interested (and pop up by themselves) there are small changes they will stick around. > > If it is just that you left bugs open for so long (or inherited them > from a revious maintainer) that now you are swamped and can't catch up > then you could also contact the front desk to get some prospective new > DDs assigned to look over and triage bugs. It's good experience for > them and the package would hopefully get back on track. Yes, it might be a good idea to get some people working on this. But it won't help me to get someone to just close bugs for the sake of closing bugs for then to disappear again. We need someone with long time commitment. Do you have a link to this "front desk"? I am optimistically imagining a long line of people longing to help out maintaining 8-) > > MfG > Goswin > > PS: This is not a personal attack on you but an encouragement to make > the package the best it can be. Thanks! All contributions are welcome. Best regards, Tormod
