Mantis package bombs

[Todd Zullinger]

Charles Curley wrote:
> Todd, the whole open source bazaar is a multi-lateral trade area, as
> the term bazaar suggests. Most of us are not in this out of the
> kindness or our hearts, but because we want to get something done.

I'm immediately suspect of anyone that claims to do anything purely
for altruistic reasons.  I think there's always a benefit to the giver
as well.  But that's a bit of a philosophical tangent. :)

> I went to install the Mantis RPM because I wanted to get something
> done. I hit a problem. Instead of tossing the RPM and installing the
> tarball, I asked on the list. I made a good faith effort to look at
> the suggestions I got, and none of those panned out. I decided I had
> done my due dilligence for the community, and have now installed the
> tarball.
> 
> It may not be unreasonable to ask, but I just determined that in
> this instance the answer was "no".

Fair enough.

I sincerely hope I didn't come across as shitting on you for not
reporting it to bugzilla.

>> I think you should view it as a plus that some maintainers do take
>> the time to follow this list, not as a negative that all of them
>> don't.  And always keep in mind that since the OS and all the work
>> to create it are given to you for free, it's not that much to ask
>> for you to report problems in the place that's most accommodating
>> to the maintainer.  (And I'm not saying that you don't report
>> things to bugzilla personally.  I know from my own little travels
>> in bugzilla that isn't true.  :)
> 
> Thanks for the parenthetical acknowledgement. Everyone has to
> determine for themselves what contributions they will make to the
> community. I doubt very much I know all of yours, and you may not
> know all of mine. Nor do we need any central Soviet telling us,
> "Comrade Zullinger, you haven't written enough lines of free
> software this week. Back to your terminal!"

Hehe.  I try to bail quickly from places that bark orders at me.

> So if you don't mind, I will determine whether something is "that
> much to ask" of me.

Nope, I don't mind at all (in fact, I'd prefer that you determine
that).  I hope I didn't give the wrong impression in my replies.  The
thing that spurred me to write is the part about expecting maintainers
to be subscribed here.  That's similar to expecting all users to
report all bugs to bugzilla (perhaps a little worse IMHO, since the
signal to noise ratio here is much lower than it is in bugzilla :).

And since there are more users than maintainers here, the side of the
maintainers is in more need of stating now and again.

> Thanks for the thought. No-one has to do anything on this list,
> except maybe the paid employees whose duties encompass such things.

Indeed.  I'm curious about it now and if other tasks don't fill my
time and distract me, I may well poke into the mantis package a bit.
If it's really fubar'd, it should be fixed or removed.  It'd be far
better to have you not find the package than to find it and waste an
hour or more before just installing the tarball.

I know nothing about mantis though, so I wonder if it could be the
sort of package like mailman, where there is a lot that needs to be
done after installing the package before it will work?  If so, there
should be a fedora specific readme somewhere that explains such steps.

>> (In the case of the above bug, it's also possible that it was fixed in
>> a newer gnome release and it just didn't get closed properly.
> 
> Nope, hasn't been fixed as far as I know. Sorry, I thought that was
> implied when I described the bug as "outstanding" rather than "still
> open".

I just didn't guess that you were being so specific with your wording
(you damn writers ;).  If it's still an issue with new versions, then
the report could be updated to note that it still applies to f7.
Otherwise it may end up getting closed when someone comes along and
auto-closes bugs from older releases*.  And changing the release
version along with a comment something like "Ping! This is still a
problem, any news?" may reach Ray at a moment when he can reply or
look into it.  (And to be clear, that's just a suggestion, I'm not
saying you need to do this. :)

* I do think that if and when such bugs are closed, they generate a
  message to the reporter (and others on the CC list) that if they
  still apply to a current release, to reopen and change the release.

> As you say, probably an upstream bug. Given the likely nature of the
> problem, I doubt it's a packaging issue. Speaking of "too much to
> ask", could Mr. Strode enter the upstream issue number or URL and
> mark the bug appropriately?

Perhaps.  It may already be in the gnome bugzilla.  It'd just take
someone to search there and tag the rh bugzilla appropriately.  Ray
may or may not have time to do that (I don't know him personally.)

I think that generally, if a bug is likely to be an upstream bug (not
a distro-specific or packaging bug), that it should be reported
upstream directly.  That way it can be addressed and fixed upstream
for all distros to pick up when an update occurs.  Who knows, maybe
the bug you reported has been fixed by another distro maintainer and
no one has yet reported it upstream so we can all get the fix.

> He hasn't even taken ownership, so I have no reason to believe he
> has reported it upstream.

Sometimes this can be caused by bugs getting reassigned as teams at
RedHat change members.  I'm not saying the bug shouldn't get
acknowledged or anything, just offering a possibly reasonable
explanation for why it's gone so long without even being assigned.

-- 
Todd        OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am in shape.  Round is a shape.

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