Re: Mantis package bombs

On Sun, Aug 26, 2007 at 01:40:57PM -0400, Todd Zullinger wrote:

You may well know what the package to maintainer ratio is in Fedora.
If not, it's rather large, with nearly 4700 source packages in the
distro and a little other 400 maintainers. I don't think it's all
that unreasonable to ask that users help out by reporting bugs to
bugzilla.

I do understand your hesitation of the package seems so full of bugs
that it's pointless. However, if that doesn't get bugzilla'd, then
other maintainers may not find out for a while that something is
horribly awry in the mantis package and that someone needs some help
(or a smack with the cluestick). So, a bugzilla may be the most
helpful thing you could do for a terribly broken package, even if it
just says that there are numerous problems (listing them briefly)
with the package and the whole things needs work.

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
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".

As for following every single thread, that's a straw man argument.
It isn't hard to write a filter to make emails with certain key
words (e.g. "mantis") jump out at you.

Bugzilla has the advantage that it mails the maintain automatically
and that the conversations there are more easily searchable on various
fields.

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


I'd read your mails and thought about trying to take a look at getting
the rpm to see what might be broken with it. I do detest mantis as a
user. I've hated having to interact with it every time I've reported
a bug to an upstream that used it. So I figured I'd wait and see if
someone else helped you out before putting myself through some likely
pain. ;-)

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


And another thought, Rahul: maintainers can ignore bugzilla entries
same as they can emails. I've had one bug (189120) oustanding since
2006-04-17, and no-one has yet taken ownership, never mind actually
done anything about it.

That is certainly true. Just because someone maintains a package
doesn't mean that they do it well. Having things in bugzilla though
makes it easier to find those lax maintainers and give them the help
(or kick) that they need. Other folks can run reports on bugzilla to
find which maintainers have been unresponsive to bugs. Then, if it's
appropriate, there's the AWOL maintainer process for those folks that
just stop responding to bugs/updates/needed changes in their packages.

That's a good point.


(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".

It may also have gotten lost in the forest of desktop bugs. It's
assigned to Ray Strode who isn't someone I'd consider a lax
maintainer. He does a lot of work with upstream gnome projects and
within the Fedora desktop team. So I'd guess the lack of response
there is due to the latter.

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?

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

)


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