bugzilla triage madness :-/
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
Tue Apr 8 13:59:48 UTC 2008
Andrew Farris wrote:
>
> I don't see how any adult who uses a computer could assume anything
> *but* that a better bug report will be more likely to get fixed than an
> incomplete one.
Computer programs are usually pretty consistent - which is why we run
them most of the time... Unless the bug is triggered by unusual
hardware, I'd expect most bugs to be easily reproducible by the
developer who is likely to be the only one who can understand and fix
it. And if it is triggered by unusual hardware, you can't expect an
isolated end user to know that or the relevant data to diagnose it.
> If they vent/complain about how broken the software is, with a
> half-hearted bug report, or just post some complaints to a mailing list
> and then decide to change projects or use a different app (omg gnome is
> broken I'll change to kde forever, etc), then the reporter is not
> beneficial and maybe its best for them to go ahead and change projects?
> I think almost all FOSS communities have become bloated with people
> giving this level of 'interest', but thats just my 2c.
An end user isn't going to know whether the bug is triggered by his
incorrect settings/options, his hardware, or it is happening to
everyone, so those mail list posts are a good thing to sort out the
issues that aren't bugs or have known workarounds. If you don't
encourage that, and a community that will repond on the user mail list
you'll end up with bugzilla being the support request forum. You'd
really be better of if BZ's weren't posted at all until a support-list
email confirmed that others had the same issue and there was no
workaround. But there is not a lot of developer involvement on the user
list to develop that sort of community interaction.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
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