[maemo-developers] Fixing bugs the user can't check (was Re: maemo Bug Jar #7)

[From: Quim Gil]

Hi,

ext Luca Olivetti wrote:
> It's useful to know that a bug is fixed, what isn't useful is that the 
> fix isn't actually available....

In regular free software development a bug is generally solved when the
code is implemented and available somewhere. It's up to you to go to the
source and compile yourself the bleeding edge or wait until a next
release is done.

As for today this can be applied only to certain components being
developed openly and in real time. Our development model is different
for some of the open parts, and is never going to be the same for the
rest. A developer will tell you "it's fixed" and you won't always be
able to fix it.

Still, for the responsible of the bug it is simpler to solve the bug as
fixed and move the attention to new bugs. This is even clearer in a
bigger scale and in these weekly bug reports, when all we want to see in
the top of the lists the bugs that are really not fixed, anywhere.

For these reasons it is probably a good idea to resolve the bugs as
fixed as soon as someone has implemented the fix. The reporter or
whoever else can always reopen the exceptions.

-- 
Quim Gil
marketing manager, open source
maemo software @ Nokia