Re: Don't report new bugs for Rmail??

[Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com>]

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> From: Juanma Barranquero <lekktu@gmail.com>
> > On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 12:19, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> > > Sorry, I'm not following: if there's no Rmail package, how come
> > > the bug tracker finds bugs by that package? What am I missing?

Because there are bugs assigned to that package.

> > At the moment, "packages" in the Emacs bugtracker are just
> > arbitrary labels. The tracker allows searching for these labels.

They're not "just arbitrary labels".
 
> It's a bad thing to call "package" to two different things. How
> about calling the labels "labels" instead?

Because they're not labels, they're packages. Debbugs allows people to
assign bugs to packages that don't have a maintainer, but suggests
that people not do so, because in the typical case it means that no
one looks at them.

If rmail (or anything else) is going to be used as a valid package to
assign bugs to, it should have a maintainer, and whoever wants it
created should tell me that they want it created and what the
maintainer is.

> > A package, apparently, is a label plus some other data, like a
> > maintainer name & address, etc. There's no package defined for
> > Emacs.

There is a package defined for emacs. There is also one for bzr,
aquamacs, octave, and a few other things. There isn't one for rmail.

> Fine, but the "don't submit bug reports" request is misleading and
> should be removed or rephrased, IMO.

Bug reports against packages that don't have a maintainer shouldn't be
submitted, because there's no indication that someone is going to look
at them. In this case, the error is that no one has asked for the
rmail package to be created.

There's no difference between rmail and the foobarbaz package in this
case.


Don Armstrong

-- 
One day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven and almost went back
in time.
 -- Steven Wright

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu