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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