Re: [gentoo-user] Number of open Bugzilla bugs (Was: Question about gentoo-sources kernel release versions)

[Rich Freeman]

I just wanted to preface this that my intent has been to be frank with
you, and I appreciate that you have done the same.  I appreciate that
you have a different perspective and I think it is actually a pretty
common one.

So, take what I say for what it is worth, and I certainly won't be
offended if you remain in disagreement, and if you feel that a
different distro would better suit your needs I certainly wouldn't
find that offensive at all either.

Also, bear in mind that I speak for nobody but myself but I do think
that some of my observations are fairly accurate in general, and most
seem to agree with your own.

On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 3:48 PM Michael Jones <gentoo@×××××××.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Feb 9, 2020 at 8:07 PM Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:
>>
>> You could have jumped through all the required hoops and still had it ignored.
>
> That's pretty horrible, honestly. Why isn't Gentoo doing better than that?

Simple, "Gentoo" can't do anything - it has no hands, no feet, no
brain.  It is a collection of volunteers.  They work on what they wish
to work on.  That means that some things end up being worked on by
nobody.

That said, plenty do work on proxy maintaining and IMO are doing
better in this area than has been at some points in the past.

> Yes, yes, Gentoo is run by volunteers, so on and so forth. But it's entirely possible (and regularly accomplished in other organizations) to emphasise a culture that actively tries to not ignore low hanging fruit for so long.

Most devs work on the things that interest them.  If your contribution
is in an area that no devs find interesting, then you're offering
low-hanging fruit that doesn't taste very good.  It might be easy to
grasp, but nobody wants to eat it.

That is just an analogy.  I'm not saying that NOBODY will find the
contribution useful.  But, it could very well be that no devs
interested in proxy-maintaining happen to find it personally useful.

>> > I'm not attempting to be contradictory for the sake of being
>> > contradictory, but the situation is significantly more complicated
>> > than what you said
>>
>> Not sure how that could be.  I literally said "If you do report an
>> issue it might or might not get fixed."  I'm pretty sure that hits all
>> the examples you supplied, being that it was basically a tautology.
>> There simply are no guarantees.
>
> Honestly, this conversation is just making me less interested in contributing to Gentoo in the future. Not only do 1-liner pull requests that fix broken packages get rejected / not fixed for a year, but now I'm being replied to with word-games when I try to discuss the issues that I face as an end-user.

I completely get that you find the absence of any guarantee
frustrating.  I was just telling you the truth.  You could do
everything right and end up being completely ignored.  This seems to
match your own observations.  That isn't meant as a word-game.  Just
as frank conversation.

> The problem is that you're lying to people if you keep a bug in bugzilla open for 10+ years.
>
> You know it won't be worked on, they know it won't be worked on. So just close the bug.

Actually, I don't agree with this.  Leaving a bug open makes no
statement at all about whether it will be worked on.

I guess it is a bit like the debate about whether agnostics are atheists.  :)

It is entirely possible a 10 year old bug will get worked on - it just
takes somebody interested to start looking at it.

>>
>> > Surely if something hasn't been addressed in 20 years, it won't be?
>>
>> If nobody can bother to fix 20 year old bugs on some piece of
>> software, why would you be running it today, and thus why would you be
>> searching for bugs for it?
>
>
> Then why is it still in the Gentoo package repository?

Maybe the package works fine for the most part.  Just because a
package has a bug doesn't mean that it is useless.  Why remove a
mostly-working piece of software over a minor bug?

>
> If it's not in the Gentoo package repository, why is there an open bug in bugzilla about it?

You can file a bug to request having something added to the
repository, so there are actually many bugs pertaining to software
that isn't in the repo.

>> The only person getting reminded is the requester.  A maintainer that
>> is deliberately ignoring bugs will be sending bot mail to /dev/null.
>> If requesters start pinging devs in other ways to get their attention
>> about such bugs, that seems more likely to just have these devs become
>> more aggressive about blocking such attempts from users to
>> communicate.  That's probably part of why so few devs are on this list
>> at all.  :)
>
> Why is that person allowed to be a maintainer for that package then? Sounds like a pretty complete abandonment of responsibility.

Just because somebody ignores a bug doesn't mean that they aren't
maintaining a package.

Suppose a maintainer ignores 99 bugs and fixes 1?  Let's fix that by
making them no longer a maintainer.  Now the package has no
maintainer, so instead of 99% of future bugs being ignored for it,
instead 100% of future bugs are ignored.  :)

All bugs involve effort and reward, and also a skillset to fix.  A
maintainer might perceive the effort for a bug isn't worth the reward,
or may not have the skillset to fix it.

> There's a "WONTFIX" resolution in bugzilla. If the maintainer isn't going to fix it, and they mark the issue as WONTFIX, then I won't waste my time waiting. I'll either find another way to do what I'm trying to do, or i'll fix the problem myself, or simply do without.

Maintainers WONTFIX bugs all the time if they know they won't be
fixed.  However, many bugs fall into the category that they're
definitely bugs that should be fixed, but the maintainer reviewing the
bug doesn't have the skills to fix that bug in a manner that is worth
their time.

Maybe another maintainer will want to fix it.  Maybe another user will
want to contribute a patch.  It seems a bit much to WONTFIX a valid
bug simply because a particular maintainer doesn't want to fix it
right away.

> I'm not suggesting rules or actions related to policing the behavior of Gentoo Developers, because I've seen first hand in the mailing list that the Gentoo Developers will not be amused, to put it mildly, at that kind of suggestion.

:)

Ultimately devs work on what they want to work on.  As long as they're
making net-positive contributions this is generally considered a good
thing for the project.

If a dev ignores 99 useful suggestions and does 1 positive thing, and
doesn't otherwise do anything negative, they've made Gentoo a better
place.  Booting them would just mean that they aren't doing anything
positive.

It is another matter when they're doing something negative.  And I do
hope you don't see my being frank as a negative.  I think a lot of
projects would just put a PR face on this sort of interaction.  I do
that sort of thing at work all the time and I could give you a
bazillion neutral non-committal answers to basically stall you into
oblivion until you quietly went away.  That isn't my intent.  I don't
get paid by the number of users we have - I hope that Gentoo is useful
for many people, but in the end I realize it isn't the right solution
for every problem and I don't try to pretend that it is otherwise.

> It's not a perfect solution, but perfect is the enemy of good, after all.

I agree.  My main objection to your solution is that it is more
cosmetic, and I tend to prefer non-committal responses in the absence
of knowledge.

I think that WONTFIX should be reserved for bugs that we KNOW won't be
fixed.  If we are 99.999% sure it won't get fixed but there is a
0.001% chance somebody might come along and fix it, because it really
is something that should be fixed even if it will take a lot of work,
then I'd prefer to see it stay open.

But, that is a matter of taste.  Others probably feel otherwise, and I
bet plenty of devs do WONTFIX bugs like these.  I don't maintain their
packages and they can do as they wish with them.

> Why is Gentoo shipping packages that aren't maintained? Isn't that what the "last rights" emails I get from time to time are all about?

Those tend to be applied to packages that aren't maintained and which
have serious problems.  If a package seems to work fine for the most
part not having a maintainer isn't considered a reason to last-rite
it.  It depends on the severity of bugs.

>
> Nevertheless, thank you for discussing it with me
>

You're welcome.  You're hardly the first person to disagree with me.  :)

I'm also not in any particular position of power when it comes to how
bugs are handled.  You can always make a proposal to automatically
close old bugs.  I'd probably start with the Bug Wranglers, though you
could always bring an issue to the Council if you don't feel you're
getting the desired response there.  They've certainly been known to
disagree with me at times too.  :)

-- 
Rich