launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's some information on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Debian/Bugs and the
linked pages, have you already seen all of that?

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 06:24:52PM +0200, Yaron Shahrabani wrote:
> Hey guys!
> Sorry for breaking in but I personnaly would love to be more involved in
> Debian's BTS, if there was an easy way to report back (even an official
> Ubuntu tutorial for this) I would do so.
> 
> I usually need forwarding bugs to the source projects (such as GNOME) since
> I maintaing both translations and most of the GNOME Hebrew or RTL related
> bugs pass through me anyway.
> 
> Just a personal point of view, thank you all for hearing me out.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Yaron Shahrabani - Ubuntu Hebrew maintainer.
> 
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 6:01 PM, Jonathan Lange <jml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Matt Zimmerman <mdz@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > Given there has been a lot of discussion around forwarding bugs upstream
> > via
> > > Launchpad, I thought folks here might be interested in this debian-devel
> > > thread:
> > >
> > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/01/msg00309.html
> > >
> > > It's long and wandering, but there is a lot of valuable first-hand
> > > perspective in there from folks who have done a lot of bug forwarding and
> > > package maintenance.
> > >
> >
> > There is. Thanks for forwarding it on.
> >
> > > I wish I could spend the time to summarize it, but thought it couldn't
> > hurt
> > > to pass it on.
> > >
> >
> > Many of the problems here and much of the thinking are familiar to us:
> >  * There are far, far too many bug reports to ever finish
> >  * Forwarding bugs upstream is complex both technically and socially,
> > no blanket approach will ever work
> >  * In particular, you need to think of what the communications will
> > look like after forwarding
> >
> > Some things that weren't related to forwarding that I found interesting:
> >  * Debian folk really like their BTS
> >  * Account management was a recurring theme
> >
> > As Matt says, there's a lot there worth reading. If you're interested
> > in the problem, take a look.
> >
> > Here are my highlights:
> >
> > """
> > maintainers should forward bugs upstream instead of requiring (or strongly
> > encouraging) users to do so
> > """
> >
> >  """
> >  If a bug is not readily reproducible or isolatable, it may be necessary
> >  to pass it over to an upstream maintainer who will know what further
> >  questions to ask.  But they need to send those questions to the user,
> >  not to the Debian maintainer.  In the kernel team, we often ask users to
> >  report bugs upstream for that reason.
> >  """
> >
> >  """
> >  Ditto on the X side. Having a low-power proxy between developers and
> >  users is quite a bad idea (induces delays and higher load).
> >  """
> >
> >
> > Thoughtful rejection of "we should forward bugs upstream on behalf of
> > users": <http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/01/msg00318.html>
> > (extract below):
> >
> >  """
> >  It is a huge and frustrating waste of my time. It is also frustrating for
> >  upstream, who would rather just talk with the user directly and involve me
> >  if they think there's a Debian-specific question. I don't understand why
> >  some users want it to go this way, but many clearly do despite the fact
> > that
> >  they get worse service.
> >
> >  I'm going to be brutally honest and admit here that being a copy and paste
> >  monkey between emails and web forms is something I really dislike doing.
> > It
> >  is something that makes Debian the opposite of enjoyable, and I think I
> > let
> >  those tasks sit longer than I should, and work on things instead where I
> > can
> >  actually contribute (such as fixing Debian bugs).
> >  """
> >
> > Others point out that the Debian maintainer acts as an expert filter &
> > refiner
> > of information for the upstream, not just a "copy and paste monkey".
> >
> >
> > """
> > I personally would love to see patches to the BTS to enable forwarding
> > these kinds of bug reports to upstreams more easily and integrate
> > everything tightly with the BTS. Unfortunately, I am perpetually short
> > of time to implement them myself, as excellent as I am certain they
> > would be.
> > """
> >
> >  """
> >  That would be a very nice feature for our BTS to have.  BUT any such
> > feature
> >  should only be enabled with respect to an upstream BTS after discussion
> > with
> >  and approval from the relevant upstream.
> >
> >  As we can see from this and previous discussions: how easy to make it to
> >  file bugs, who can file them, how they get to be filed, and so on, are
> >  things that people care about and have strong opinions about. Different
> >  projects have different cultural and technical expectations.
> >
> >  Anecdote: while I was employed by Canonical I had to dissuade some of my
> >  colleagues from implementing and deploying, without consent from Debian, a
> >  feature in Launchpad that would automatically file corresponding bug
> > reports
> >  in the Debian BTS.  I expressed the view that doing so would be considered
> >  abuse by the Debian BTS admins and would probably result in some emergency
> >  ad-hoc wholesale blocking of Launchpad's access to Debian infrastructure.
> >  Not to mention an absolutely enormous flamewar.
> >
> >  To all of us that would obviously have been a really bad idea. Let us be
> >  careful not to do to our upstreams what we don't want our downstreams to
> > do
> >  to us. (Ian Jackson)
> >  """ <http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/01/msg00395.html>
> >
> >
> > """
> > The bts-link system takes care of polling for upstream bug status updates
> > for
> > several common bug trackers
> > """
> >
> >
> > """
> > Upstream tend to request users to install latest and greatest versions,
> > often for source or using other unsafe methods. Not only for package in
> > question but also for explicit and implicit dependences. Non-technical
> > follow these broken advices and break their systems. And then complain
> > that Debian is problematic for them.
> >
> > I think that forwarding user upstream is acceptable only for deeply
> > technical users. But but not as a default policy.
> > """
> >
> >  """
> >  Not all upstreams are like that, but I think that brings to the front an
> >  important point: there are vast differences in users, in upstreams, and in
> >  maintainers.
> >  """
> >
> > Reflections on the danger of non-maintainer triagers:
> > <http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/01/msg00393.html>
> >
> > Distributed bug tracking:
> > <http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/01/msg00328.html>
> >
> > jml
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >

-- 
 - mdz