GDB 11.1 released

Posted Sep 14, 2021 11:51 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: GDB 11.1 released by pebolle
Parent article: GDB 11.1 released

> Chris argues that reporting bugs or sending patches is a lot of work, often unpleasant, and unlikely to be successful, especially in the short term. So generally no fun and not worth it. (This short summary doesn't do Chris' blog entries justice.)

Sure, reporting bugs or sending patches takes time and effort, something you may not consider fun or otherwise worth it. If you can't be bothered to make that effort becuase it's not worth the value you place on your own time, why do you keep assuming that the software author's time is inherently less valuable than your own, and that their priorities are the same as yours?

GDB 11.1 released

Posted Sep 14, 2021 12:44 UTC (Tue) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link] (4 responses)

> If you can't be bothered to make that effort becuase it's not worth the value you place on your own time, why do you keep assuming that the software author's time is inherently less valuable than your own, and that their priorities are the same as yours?

But not filing bugs or not sending patches doesn't cost the author any time. Of course you then have to live with the bug and hope the bug gets fixed someday, if ever.

(The fact that bug reports and patches do cost other people time to handle makes them risky. There's a good chance the authors feel you're wasting their time. Especially because it's rather hard to write good bug reports or patches.)

GDB 11.1 released

Posted Sep 14, 2021 13:16 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (3 responses)

> But not filing bugs or not sending patches doesn't cost the author any time.

It does. Assuming they care about the software, if authors have to find the bug themselves and/or fix it themselves it costs them more time than getting a bug report and/or a patch.

GDB 11.1 released

Posted Sep 14, 2021 20:45 UTC (Tue) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link] (2 responses)

That's true if the software's author and the submitter of a patch or the reporter of bugs agree about the value of a patch or a report. My impression is that this is the exemption. The rule is: patch NOGOOD, bug WONTFIX. Even more cynical: patch CRICKETS, bug CRICKETS.

The theory seems to be that in free software people should report bugs and submit patches and then free software will grow into some free software nirvana. (Hyperbole alert!) In practice things are complicated. Valid reports are rejected, unsound patches are submitted, sound patches are ignored, etc.

It's free software. It's OK to not file bugs or to not submit patches. In many cases that's actually the best thing to do. Because the tricky part is figuring out when and how to report bugs or send patches.

GDB 11.1 released

Posted Sep 15, 2021 7:24 UTC (Wed) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link] (1 responses)

"It's free software. It's OK to not file bugs or to not submit patches."

Yup. As OK as it is for me to ignore your comments on this, because now I'm convinced that you are only interested in ranting instead of fixing things :)

GDB 11.1 released

Posted Sep 15, 2021 9:57 UTC (Wed) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link]

You're free to ignore my comments.

But it is odd that you justify this by quoting only two sentences of a very short paragraph. Because the quote suggests I said something else than I actually did.