>>>>> On 2023-01-07 12:37:03 +0100, Chris Hofstaedtler wrote:
>>>>> Ivan Shmakov <i...@siamics.net> [230107 10:39]:
[…]
>> My understanding is that the Debian BTS exists for the benefit
>> of Debian users at large, not just the developers and maintainers;
>> and in particular serves to inform the users of the issues they
>> can run into upon upgrade. (And if that’s somehow not the case,
>> I’d kindly suggest that an alternative BTS is created for that
>> purpose.)
> This is not my understanding of the Debian BTS. Indeed, if the bug
> tracker produces a long list of "bugs" that are unactionable to me,
> then it is not serving any useful purpose to me.
> The end effect is one that can be seen for most high-usage packages:
> actually relevant bugs are forgotten by the maintainers, put into
> the same bucket as all the other, not-so-relevant entries
> (not-really-"bugs").
The web interface lists wontfix bugs separately to other reports;
see, e. g., http://bugs.debian.org/src:tightvnc . If you have
suggestions on how that list can be improved, I’d be willing to
look into the code (sometime within the next few months) and
propose a patch. (I’m not familiar with any other Debian BTS
UIs, so won’t be able to help with those, though.)
> I want to stress that this report is not a "bug" at all: just
> new, different behaviour.
The change that Debian users have found problematic.
[…]
> In this case, I specially love that for three quarters of a year
> nothing has happened - after my suggestion of talking to upstream,
> just silence.
> Once I close the report, people show up with useful info and
> also with opinions on how I should run the BTS for a package I
> maintain.
I don’t have vested interest in how more(1) behaves as I don’t
use it myself. (Though I still help other users with it, as well
as with a bunch of other Debian tools, from time to time.)
That said, I’m still following the util-linux Debian BTS reports
(somewhat loosely, admittedly), as, quite obviously, I /do/ rely
on the package rather heavily.
In this case, what provoked my response is specifically how
Debian BTS is used, which is something I’m also invested in.
We’re all volunteers here (and this also means that we can’t run
the BTS like a corporation would IMO), so I can’t in any way
‘force’ my understanding on anyone, but I’d still think explaining
my point from time to time would be of some value to the project.
There wouldn’t be much improvement should we all keep our
suggestions to ourselves, no?
[…]
--
FSF associate member #7257 http://am-1.org/~ivan/
