Interesting comments

[Kevin Kofler]

Adam Williamson wrote:
> I've seen similar threads before. The thing I generally take out of
> them, which I really tried to get MDV bug triagers to buy into, is
> follow up. Triaging isn't a drive-by operation, you have to follow up
> the bug. You really should be in CC for any bug you triage.
> 
> What Ubuntu users get frustrated about is when a triager touches one of
> their bugs, then never comes back, and basically makes it *less* likely
> to be addressed by the developer.
> 
> I know John is big on this too. Our job is to be an ongoing interface
> between the reporter and the maintainers, to make it easier and more
> efficient for the right information to flow in both directions. We're
> not just blindly touching bugs and moving on.

I think both are really needed. Of course there needs to be an active
triager, ideally part of the relevant SIG like SMParrish a.k.a. tuxbrewr
for KDE, who monitors the bugs. But sometimes fly-by operations can be
useful too, e.g. reassigning all the bugs incorrectly filed against 0xFFFF
to the correct component. There's no way they'll be handled if the
maintainer who should fix them is not even CCed, so reassigning them is
important. Plus, getting the bug reassigned to the correct component will
also CC the triager(s) with the domain expertise if they're on
watchbugzilla (as for KDE) or use a setup like the xgl-maint mailing list
used by the X11 folks. While I'm primarily a packager and developer, not a
triager, I've sometimes helped with such one-time operations (like the
0xFFFF one), which points out an important point: one-time triaging can be
done by people who are not dedicated to triaging (e.g. maintainers are
often the best qualified for this kind of operations, but other volunteers
can be helpful too). But of course it's no substitute for the work our
dedicated triagers are doing! (And a big Thank You for that!)

        Kevin Kofler