[maemo-developers] maemo Bug Jar #7

[From: Andre Klapper]

Am Donnerstag, den 05.06.2008, 10:54 +0200 schrieb Luca Olivetti:
> It's useful to know that a bug is fixed, what isn't useful is that the 
> fix isn't actually available....

Quim already answered this partially, let me also try to describe our
bugmaster's point of view here.

We could create new statuses in Maemo Bugzilla, for example "fixed in
codebase" and "fix publically available to end-users by updating
through the official software channels", but I don't see much sense in
that.
I expect bug reporters to update their software from time to time to
check whether their issue has really been fixed - it's a question of how
much the bug reporter wants to be involved in the process (some people
just want to file bugs and don't care about verifying the fix, while
others have the will and motivation to verify. It's their personal
freedom to choose their grade of involvement).

In GNOME Bugzilla (that I have been working on for several years now)
bugs also get closed as fixed when the fix has been committed into the
codebase. This often means that "average" end users cannot immediately
verify the fix (except they are advanced users/devs compiling from SVN
source).
We expect them to reopen the bug after they have been able to verify
that the commit did not fix their issue (which could be months after
closing the report as fixed if they only run stable versions shipped by
their distribution).

This is a question of policy, but I cannot see good reasons to make this
more complicated for everybody by adding more statuses here. I'm sorry
to say, but this is how code development generally works from my point
of view. I may be wrong here, but it has worked out well for me so far.

andre
-- 
Andre Klapper (maemo.org bugmaster)