debbugs.gnu.org: is it user-centric or developer-centric?

[Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net>]

	Could someone please clarify on the proper usage of
	debbugs.gnu.org?  Specifically, per my prior experience with the
	Debian BTS, the issues which the developers do not consider
	worth fixing, but which are otherwise valid, are tagged
	‘wontfix’, but /not/ closed.

	The rationale behind that is that the issues both remain visible
	to the /users/ of the package, /and/ are known to be “dealt
	with” (in a way) to the developers.

	Recently, two of my bug reports filed against Emacs (#17959 and
	#19109, specifically) were closed without the issues being
	actually fixed.  This makes them eligible for archiving, which
	will hide them from the (default) BTS view.

	Granted, Debian BTS was established to serve /both/ the
	developers /and/ the users of the package (or at least it’s my
	reading of the Debian Social Contract.)  I thus wonder if my
	experience is applicable to the Debbugs instance run by the GNU
	project; or if that instance is instead targeted primarily at
	developers, and thus merely sharing the knowledge of the
	existing issues (including those arising from some “singular
	usage pattern”, so to say) among the users is out of its scope?

	TIA.

>>>>> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
>>>>> Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> writes:
>>>>> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

 >>> So I'm closing this.

 >> I have no objections to classifying this as ‘wontfix’, but I’d
 >> rather keep this opened for the issue to remain visible to the
 >> community.  (FWIW, http://debbugs.gnu.org/ hides closed issues by
 >> default.)

	I stand corrected: merely closing the bug doesn’t hide it from
	the public view.  However, it makes the bug eligible for
	archiving, and the archived bugs /do/ get hidden by default.

 > That's the point of closing bugs reports -- so that other maintainers
 > don't have to bother with them.

	Wouldn’t ‘wontfix’ be enough for that?

 > Closing again.

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