[maemo-developers] Unsatisfied with bugs.maemo.org

[From: Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

Gil Quim (Nokia-D/Helsinki) wrote:
> ext Till Harbaum / Lists wrote:
>> i am really unsatisfied with bugs.maemo.org. The reason is simple: Just too many
>> bugs are just closed with WONTFIX which basically means: We understand and
>> acknowledge the problem, but we won't spend any time on it.
> 
> bugs.maemo.org is only the messenger...
> 
>> This would be acceptible if maemo would be a really open plattform and anybody
>> could just fix things. But that's not how maemo works and there's such a huge
>> number of bugs that never get fixed and the same issues appear ever now and then
>> again. I e.g. just filed bug 4630 and should have noticed myself that 1504 was 
>> the same one filed june 2007. It was never fixed but was just WONFIX'd. And we
>> are not just talking about some weird feature. We are actually talking about
>> something being documented in the maemo api docs.
> 
> I think Andre and you can still try with bug 4630 if it relates to the
> Maemo 5 API.

Bug 4630 & 1504 are about themeing a single Gtk widget aspect.

There are many other Gtk widgets and icons which aren't (at least fully)
themed although they otherwise work fine.  This is because it would
require (internally):
* UI specifications about these widget features and their themeing
* Themeing these things (gtkrc & graphics) for all themes according
   to the specification
* Writing test programs for these features
   (as they're not used by the product itself)
* Regular testing that the widget features and themeing work
   (in all themes) according to the specification

Which is quite a lot of extra work for things that aren't used at all
in the product itself.  So, it's not done.

If the community wants the extra widgets / widget features and icons to
be themed because they actually have some program(s) that use them, I
think its better to handle that as a community project...?


>> Why is there a bug reporting system if so many bugs end up with WONTFIX? This
>> doesn't make much sense to me.
> 
> Again, don't kill the messenger.
> 
> Maemo 5 bug handling has been already a lot more efficient than in
> previous versions, thanks to people reproducing old bugs in the
> Fremantle pre-releases. We expect the good responsiveness to be kept
> once Maemo 5 is launched and we get new bugs from Maemo 5 users, getting
> the fixes out in new updates.
> 
> What we have is a bag of bugs still open affecting mostly Diablo.
> Because of many reasons those bugs were not handled in time or there
> were no resources to fix them at the time.

The main reason was that we didn't have regular pre-releases of the
software before Fremantle.

The situation of what happens after the official release, is similar as
with the other Linux Distros, once e.g. Ubuntu releases a new version of
its distribution, implementing feature bugs and minor bug fixes happen
to  the next release having new features (currently Fremantle on Maemo),
the old release will get only bugfixes to security and other critical
issues and eventually even those stop.  Ubuntu does new releases at
fixed 6 months schedule and the bugfixes to them stop for them pretty
quickly except for the LTS releases.

Our schedule differs (much) more. Also, we don't currently provide LTS
releases (partly because Nokia business model is different, we sell
products whereas most other Linux distros basically sell services).
Unlike Ubuntu we have a few bugfix releases (like e.g. Debian has)
because our releases happen at longer intervals.

Because of the more radical HW platform differencies between the device
targets of the Maemo SW releases, we cannot (at least currently) offer
as good backwards HW compatibility support as can be done on x86.  This
is something that we need to work with the community (and is currently
being done e.g. in context of Mer).


> Now we are cleaning those
> bugs week after week and yes, this brings lots of WONTFIX among those
> that are not an issue anymore in Fremantle. It's more a consequence of a
> past problem than a reflection of a current problem, though.


	- Eero