Reverse bug triage

[Chris Adams <cmadams hiwaay net>]

How about a triage process that pokes maintainers?  I have a few bugs
that appear to be ignored by maintainers, despite all the necessary
information being provided:

- radiusclient-ng - BZ 236350
  Nothing happened for over 9 months, then I supplied the one-line fix
  (to the Fedora-specific patch), and (after another month) packages
  went to updates-testing, where they've been for another two months.

- hal-info - BZ 425875
  I found what amounts to a typo (my system listed in a comment but not
  in the actual config) and got no response.  After a month, I went
  upstream (created an upstream BZ account, etc.), and it was fixed
  there.  It appears a newer hal-info will be in F9, but a month after
  I reported the fix in RH BZ, there's no sign of an update for F8.
  There has never been a response from anybody in RH BZ.

- hal - BZ 425876
  hal is required for NetworkManager, but they both have startup
  priority 98.  Changing the system LC_COLLATE to anything that cares
  about case breaks startup; hal should probably be below 98.  I guess
  upstart is supposed to fix all this, but when?  Again, never a
  response from a maintainer in BZ.  At least if no change will be made,
  say so and close the bug.

- system-config-network - BZ 429725
  This one a s-c-n developer jumped in quickly and provided a patch in
  short order (and the fix is in s-c-n git).  I verified it fixed the
  problem, but there's no sign of an actual update for F8 two months
  later.

I don't want to get automated triage emails about any of these after
they've been idle for months or years.  NEEDINFO does not apply (at
least as far as I can tell - nobody has asked for any more info anyway).
Any email alerts for these need to go to the maintainers, not the
reporters.

I understand people are busy (I never get done all I'd like to), but why
should I report bugs, research and supply fixes, when still nothing
happens?

-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams hiwaay net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.