Gentoo Archives: gentoo-amd64

From: Frank Peters <frank.peters@×××××××.net>
To: gentoo-amd64@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Digest of gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org issue 367 (13009-13035)
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2011 06:03:37
Message-Id: 20110708195622.981b7eef.frank.peters@comcast.net
In Reply to: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Digest of gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org issue 367 (13009-13035) by DJ Cozatt
1 On Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:46:38 -0400
2 DJ Cozatt <ygdrasil@×××××××.net> wrote:
3
4 >
5 > Is a discussion/flame about the report upstream qa messages.
6 > Help me out here guys and weigh in. (dons flame suit)
7 >
8
9 To be honest, I am still quite surprised at the fact that distribution
10 maintainers even waste time fixing obvious bugs, let alone QA
11 issues. If anything, outright bugs should be the responsibility
12 of the upstream developers and only of the upstream developers.
13 Yet there seems to be this many-tiered approach to reporting and
14 fixing bugs, with each distribution maintaining its own independent
15 set of reports and patches. This makes little sense. For example,
16 there are patches available on Gentoo (and other distributions as well)
17 that are needed to fix certain software bugs but these same patches
18 are not included in the original source code. The way I see it,
19 there is much manpower being wasted by having all of this duplicated
20 effort.
21
22 Upstream developers should be very accommodating when it comes
23 to bug reports. After all, the software is *their* creation and
24 their sense of pride -- if nothing else -- should impel them
25 to release the best possible code.
26
27 But upstream developers are known to sometimes be less than
28 enthusiastic about bugs. I experienced an issue recently with
29 the login program and thought it best to make a report to
30 upstream only (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=600755).
31 After a long period with no significant response I decided to file
32 a report with Gentoo ( https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=324419).
33 The Gentoo developers tackled the problem and found the source
34 of the error. I reported these results back to upstream where
35 hopefully the bug will be fixed, but there should not have been
36 the need to approach both parties.
37
38 As far as QA issues, this should definitely be only the concern
39 of upstream developers. The only way to improve code for every user
40 is to put pressure, in the form of constructive criticism, on upstream
41 to adhere to good coding practice.
42
43
44 > Further on the conversations wandered-to in the topic 'optimization'
45 > in the kernel config menu under the heading 'General Setup' lies
46 > [*] Optimize trace point call sites
47 >
48
49 Is This option for debugging purposes? If so then there is no
50 need for it with ordinary user builds.
51
52 Frank Peters