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

Allan McRae allan at archlinux.org
Sat Mar 13 14:54:21 CET 2010


On 13/03/10 22:55, Heiko Baums wrote:
> 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.

You obviously do not visit the glibc tracker.  Then again, perhaps there 
is a reason for such things in that particular project...  And I have 
seen similar things on other distros trackers where reopens by users are 
allowed (yes, including Gentoo), although they obviously are not the 
usual.  Then again, most bugs do not get re-open requests in Arch.

> 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?

Yes, it occurs and not infrequently.  The question should be does it 
occur more often than that bugs are closed to early?  I.e. which 
solution would cause less total annoyance.  Note that one option focuses 
the annoyance on a small number of devs, while the other spreads it out 
across many users.

> 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.

We are also users...  According to flyspray, I have opened 126 bugs and 
I do not recall ever requesting or reopening one after it was closed.

I do not see all reopen requests, but the need to "beg" seems 
overstated...  I do know that it is much, much easier to get a bug 
reopened if the request is clear and well justified.  A large portion of 
reopen requests provide no information to properly judge their merit in 
which case they are more likely denied.

Allan


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