Rémi Cardona <remi@g.o> posted 49B25553.5020302@g.o,
excerpted below, on  Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:06:59 +0100:

> And to close off, I'll say a few things about your attitude back in bug
> 260582.
> 
> #1 : I closed that bug because we already know about bumps. Polluting
> our bug list with stuff we're _already_ working on is both useless for
> you and annoying for us.

Not to step in the middle of that whole thing, but as a general rule, if 
someone files a bump bug, it probably does make sense to comment on it 
with the status, then leave it open until the ebuild hits the tree and 
preferably hits ~arch.  Among other useful things it:

* Let's any other user wanting to know about status that someone from 
Gentoo does indeed know about it and is taking care of it, with whatever 
detail the suggested comment provides.  This simply makes sense as it can 
avoid multiple people asking about it repeatedly, thus saving YOU time 
and bother.

* Related to that, it (ideally) keeps anyone else from filing a similar 
bug, as they see the still-open bug.  For a bump bug especially, people 
who might file a dup are even LESS likely to check closed bugs before 
filing their dup, because they won't expect the bug to be closed because 
after all, there's nothing in the tree yet.  Again, this saves YOU time 
and bother, as well as giving anyone look a hint of what's going on.

One possible exception might be for versions that you don't intend to put 
in the tree anyway.  Those bugs could be closed if desired, but given the 
above, it may make sense to leave them open at least until the next 
version is out, simply to decrease the possible dup hassle factor as much 
as possible.

The bug in discussion is a case in point.  I might not have filed a bug 
on it, but I was certainly wondering about it, and finding that bug both 
gave me some sort of tentative target to look forward to and avoided my 
asking, either in bug form or on say the desktop list (more likely since 
I know some folks don't like those bump bugs), what the plan was.  There 
are or likely will be others...

So yeah, a bump bug might be a bother, but it's worth taking the 
pragmatic view and believing that the first one may well prevent others, 
if it's dealt with properly.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman