Comments on: GNOME Bugsquad policy changes

By: hggdh

hggdh — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:37:43 +0000

@James: This is not entirely correct. We do not go closing bugs blindly (and, in fact, Ubuntu bugs do *not* expire). But we *do*, for bugs that have been opened for a long time, ask the reporter(s) if it is still an issue, and mostly on unconfirmed/incomplete bugs. Please also note that the bug status in Ubuntu do not completely match b.g.o.

And, BTW, my stats there are rather low

By: GNOME Bugsquad Meeting « muellis blog

GNOME Bugsquad Meeting « muellis blog — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:18:17 +0000

[...] good to see people caring about our bug database. The decisions we’ve made are visible in Andres Blog or on our Wiki page of [...]

By: aklapper

aklapper — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:01:01 +0000

@Davyd: Yes, marking bugs as duplicates counts as activity.

By: James

James — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:31:35 +0000

The Launchpad policy shits me to tears – their bug helpers are far more interested in stats obtained by closing bugs that actually helping users.

By: Davyd

Davyd — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:50:54 +0000

Or maybe this should only apply to UNCONFIRMED bugs?

By: Davyd

Davyd — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:49:33 +0000

There are some bugs that take years to fix, but you want to keep them around (they are real bugs). Does assigning new bugs as duplicates of this bug count as activity?

Perhaps a keyword could be used ‘keepopen’ or ‘hardfix’ or something.

By: Maciej Piechotka

Maciej Piechotka — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:08:03 +0000

I guess when module is unmaintained the bugs should not be closed. Next mainterner (if any) may take care about them – unless modules is obsolete (such as gnome-vfs) and replaced.

By: aklapper

aklapper — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:17:20 +0000

@Nelson Benitez: You describe a valid negative side effect.
However comparing how many open reports are obsolete nowadays to the number of old untouched reports that are still valid I think it’s the right way to go. I’ve seen similar policies in Launchpad and Red Hat Bugzilla.
If a valid bug should not be closed then reporters or other folks should correctly update their reports (and the Version setting).
GNOME Bugzilla is not the trashcan where thousands of ancient bugs rot without being touched by anybody hence we do warn people before closing ancient tickets.

By: Nelson Benitez

Nelson Benitez — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:49:52 +0000

I think the auto-close policy it’s wrong, it’s destroying the work others have done, I mean, I have fixed several nautilus bugs that were from 2 to 4 years old, all were reproduceable and valid bugs, in some of them the reporter was not responding emails (it’s normal that in 2 years you change email address or you get interested in new things outside gnome, especially if in that 2 years you have received any feedback from the bug that you once filed..) . As an example the following bug was 7 years old, was a valid bug on those 7 years and possibly I could not find it and fix it if it was closed due to this policy.

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45588

In my opinion it’s nobody’s work to check if a bug is still valid (nor reporter, bug triaggers or developers) it’s work of whoever takes care and wants to do it, but should never be an excuse to close a bug that could still be valid.. so a developer can find it and fix it in the future.

By: aklapper

aklapper — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:14:44 +0000

@JustAGuy: Yeah, in Open Source resources are often limited – same for Developers and Bugsquad members.
A review for enhancements by the Bugsquad does not make sense I think. It’s up to maintainers to decide what to implement and what not, we cannot read their minds.