Maintainer Responsibilities

Edwin ten Brink edwin at tenbrink-bekkers.nl
Thu Jun 4 21:19:30 UTC 2009


Steve Grubb wrote:
> Does a maintainer's responsibilities end with packaging 
> bugs? IOW, if there is a problem in the package that is _broken code_ do they 
> need to do something about it or is it acceptable for them to close the bug 
> and say talk to upstream? Do we want those bugs open to track when the bug is 
> fixed in the distro?

Aside from all discussions in this thread, the current Bugzilla 
documentation seems quite clear on this topic. Whatever the outcome of 
the discussion is, I think the documentation which is visible to the 
end-user (customer), should at least match the common practice/procedure.

Note also that the discussion is primarily focussed on the Resolution of 
the bug report, while there are also two Keywords available with respect 
to upstream. I've quoted the full texts below for reference.

Regards,

Edwin



 From https://bugzilla.redhat.com/describekeywords.cgi
<quote>
Keyword: MoveUpstream
Bugs with this keyword are slated to be filed in the upstream bug 
tracker or reported to the upstream mailing list, then closed UPSTREAM 
on the Red Hat level. This typically includes almost all feature 
requests and enhancements, and most bugs that we don't consider release 
showstoppers. (moving a bug upstream typically increases the chance that 
someone will have time to look at it, and often the upstream developer 
or bug owner even works at Red Hat - moving things upstream simply 
allows us to keep everything in one place, and work better with open 
source community developers outside of Red Hat. We only keep bugs open 
on redhat.com to track our immediate short-term TODO items, or issues 
with our patches/packaging, or because the upstream package in question 
has poor bug tracking. The main focus of development for most packages 
is the upstream community, even when Red Hat is a big contributor to the 
community.) Some upstream bug trackers: http://bugzilla.gnome.org 
http://bugzilla.kde.org http://bugzilla.mozilla.org If a bug has this 
keyword, feel free to go ahead and move it upstream, add a link to the 
upstream report in our report, and then close the bug. Or we typically 
do this ourselves in batches.

Keyword: Upstream
This keyword means that the feature or bug fix in this bugzilla was 
already accepted upstream and will be inherited by a RHEL release.
</quote>


 From https://bugzilla.redhat.com/page.cgi?id=fields.html#status
<quote>
Resolution: UPSTREAM
This resolution should not be used for RHEL bugs. Otherwise, bugs closed 
with this resolution are filed in the upstream bugs tracker or reported 
to the upstream mailing list. This typically includes almost all feature 
requests and enhancements, and most bugs that we don't consider release 
showstoppers. (moving a bugs upstream typically increases the chance 
that someone will have time to look at it, and often the upstream 
developer or bug owner even works at Red Hat - moving things upstream 
simply allows us to keep everything in one place, and work better with 
open source community developers outside of Red Hat. We only keep bug 
open on redhat.com to track our immediate short-term TODO items, or 
issues with our patches/packaging, or because the upstream package in 
question has poor bug tracking. The main focus of development for most 
packages is the upstream community, even when Red Hat is a big 
contributor to the community.) Some upstream bug trackers: 
http://bugzilla.gnome.org http://bugs.kde.org http://bugzilla.mozilla.org.
</quote>




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