[arch-general] [arch-dev-public] Allow comments on closed bugs?

[Heiko Baums]

Am Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:58:24 +0100
schrieb Pierre Schmitz <pierre at archlinux.de>:

> Yes, there are sometimes situations where I wanted to add a more or
> less important comment to a bug reports but it was just closed.
> 
> In the other hand I see the problems of never ending discussions and
> flame wars.

In other bug trackers I haven't seen never ending discussions and flame
wars on closed bugs, yet. Sometimes long discussions happen on open
bugs, but usually in a factual manner, and usually there's a reason for
this, because it's a controversial issue. If a comment is written on a
closed bug it's just to give some more details, because the fix is not
quite sufficient or could be made still better or the like.

And in cases in which it's possible to reopen a bug directly without
sending a request, I also haven't seen exploitations. Usually the bug is
reopened once or twice to give another argument or another aspect. But
then it's alright.

How many bug reports are actually invalid because of an imperfect
knowledge or (search) laziness of the reporter? How many bug reports
are of the type Aaron Griffin has mentioned before (Feature request,
closed as "won't implement", reopend with "but it's a good feature",
denied with "we won't implement this, wait for upstream", reopened,
denied)? Are there really so many of them? I have my doubts. Or is this
more the developer's fear that this could happen?

And as I've written in other e-mails, don't see only your developer's
point of view. See also the user's and reporter's point of view and how
a certain bug handling (early closings, forcing reopening requests
(begging), etc.) is or at least can be received by the user/reporter.

Btw., comments on closed bugs is more or less a minor issue. The bigger
issue is the early bug closing. ;-)

Heiko