Bugzappers: requests from maintainers for special treatment

[John Summerfield]

Adam Williamson wrote:
> Hi, guys. Just a general issue mail for Bugzappers: I've recently been
> talking to Seth Vidal, who wants special treatment for bugs in
> components he maintains (yum and createrepo): he's happy for them to be
> triaged according to the usual process, but he doesn't want the bugs
> changed from NEW to ASSIGNED.
> 
> As a general principle, we should accept requests like this from the
> owners of components, because we're here for them and not vice versa; if
> our procedure doesn't work for them we should vary it so that what we do
> is helping them and not frustrating them. We have a regular triager for
> yum / createrepo who is aware of this (Jon Stanley), but anyone else who
> happens to touch yum / createrepo bugs in future, please follow this
> request.

I think this is a step towards kaos. Even if exceptions are documented 
somewhere, that somewhere is something that triagers (especially new 
triagers) will overlook sometimes.

As far as possible, there should be a single, standard procedure that 
works reasonably well for everyone. That does not mean that everyone has 
to be entirely happy with what that procedure is - it will never happen 
that everyone is happy with everything, but whatever it is, everyone 
needs to accept that it is a reasonable compromise.

I don't propose that triagers should prescribe what that standard 
procedure is, by and large that should be decided by developers jointly, 
and considering triagers' points of view, and if needed, by arbitration.

If Seth has some concerns with triagers changing NEW to ASSIGNED, then 
those concerns need to be discussed with other developers, with a common 
approach being adopted. It might be that Seth's concerns are shared, it 
might be that another state, "REFERRED" might be appropriate, with the 
referee maybe choosing to adopt it, or to assign/refer it to someone else.

For purposes of discussion, I assume that most triagers are much less 
experienced than most maintainers. The triagers are the people least 
qualified for deciding on changes to procedures and software.

Proposing changes, yes.


-- 

Cheers
John

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