Development issues part 2: Bug tracking

Posted Jan 10, 2008 19:05 UTC (Thu) by kmccarty (subscriber, #12085) [Link]

I've submitted a bug or two to Debian and KDE and the lack of any response makes me unlikely to bother again, except for a real show stopper.

It's worth noting that maintainers of popular packages like KDE or X are completely swamped in bugs. (I'm thinking of recent blog entries by Brice Goglin and David Nusinow, two of Debian's X maintainers.) Consider sending a polite "ping" to the bug, or even a patch to fix it if you can, and you might get more of a reaction -- surely it's at least worth a try!

Posted Jan 11, 2008 17:26 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

a bug tracker is no use if the bugs don't get fixed.

I do, as a user, find it to be quite useful in that case. Assuming the bug tracker has decent search capability, it tells me not to waste time reporting a bug that has already been reported.

Furthermore, in projects where most bugs don't get fixed, it saves me the time of reporting even a new bug. When I want to report a bug in a project with which I'm not familiar, I always first look at a recent sampling of bug reports (whether in a mailing list or formal tracker) to get a feel for whether the project actually fixes bugs or not, and if not, I don't waste my time.

Not fixing bugs can be as simple as ignoring the reports, but it can also be making excuses -- closing the issue with "it's fine the way it is."