[maemo-developers] Proposal: XSBC-Bugtracker in debian package

[From: Niels Breet]

On Fri, August 28, 2009 17:15, Graham Cobb wrote:
> On Friday 28 August 2009 14:38:33 Niels Breet wrote:
>
>> XSBC-Bugtracker:
>> The URL of the bugtracker for this package, preferably (when applicable)
>>  the URL where you can directly file a bug. The content of this field
>> is a simple URL without any surrounding characters such as <>.
>
> Thanks, Niels.
>
>
> I think this is a good idea.
>
>
> I presume a garage tracker is an acceptable URL.  If Ed ever gets the
> chance to do his "autobuild from garage" proposal he could default this to
> the associated tracker!
>

Yes you should be able to point to any tracker of course.

>> When this feature is accepted, it should be added to the Packaging
>> Policy
>> too.
>
> This is where it gets a bit more tricky.  I think it should be added as a
>  strong recommendation, for user/ packages.
>
> Much as I would like it to be for all user/ packages I don't think we can
> make it mandatory.  Commercial application publishers are unlikely to want
> to do it and there may also be some applications (particularly small ones
> with a small user base) which just do not have the facility to do this but
> which are still useful to have available.

I think it this should be in the policy as SHOULD, not MUST. I mentioned
the policy because this is not an official field and should be listed
there.

The easier it is for people to find a bugtracker, the easier it is to
report bugs. Developers will benefit from that. If they don't want this
feature, they should just not use it.

>
> It may have some value for library packages (and other non-user packages)
> but it is clearly not necessary for those -- most people never know or
> care that they exist.
>
> In previous discussions there has been talk of using this to provide a
> common UI for bug reporting (or even to automatically report crashes).
> That would
> require that the bug reporting systems all worked in the same way (or all
> supported some particular URL syntax for reporting bugs).  While that
> would be useful I think it is impossible for the immediate future and
> should not be part of this proposal.  If/when someone comes up with a way
> to do that we can add another control file field to indicate support for
> automatic bug reporting.

Yes, I think automatic bug reporting is really out of the scope for this
proposal.

>
> Graham

- Niels