Re: Bug statistics

[Yoni Rabkin <yoni@rabkins.net>]

> Although the debbugs UI is far from ideal, do you have any evidence
> that is one of the more important problems?
>
> IMO the main problem is man power.

Having followed the Emacs development community for some time now I
think that everyone appreciates how few people can commit and how
overwhelmed with work those people are.

> There are >100 bugs with patches attached that have not been applied.
> For a lot of these patches there's no obvious maintainer to take care
> of them, so one of the maintainers would have to do it.
>
> Same goes about bug reports, quite a few are about areas that nobody
> feels particularly attached to, so they don't get any action.

I had recently posted a patch to this list (next time I'll add it to the
bug system instead). Here is my view of this from a bug-reporter's point
of view:

I do believe that if someone posts a bug and feels strongly about it
they should do a follow-up, say at most once a week, and make sure to
get an answer from someone who can commit it. An acceptable answer could
be: "I'll commit this in 3 months, please write back then to remind me."
or "I'll commit this but I don't know when, please write back in a week
and we'll see."

What I'm trying to say is that I think outstanding bugs should not be
seen as being the sole responsibility of developers who can commit. The
people who submit the bug reports should try and follow the
activity. After all, they are reporting on issues they want fixed.

Would such a policy produce noise? I don't think so; I doubt that the
majority of people would take the time to diligently follow up their bug
reports to completion.

-- 
   "Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice"