Re: How does the Emacs bug tracker work?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>]

Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> writes:

> See http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=6533

:-)

>> Does that really means that there are over 2000 unresolved bug reports
>> in the tracker?
>
> Yes.
>
> http://debbugs.gnu.org/rrd/emacs.html

Ouch.

Has there been a policy discussion here about how the bug tracker should
be handled?  Having witnessed these discussions before, there are
usually two sides of the argument:

1) All bugs, no matter how old, should be kept on the books until they
have been replicated and fixed, because, one day, somebody may take a
look at them and fix them.  Even though they're for really obscure
systems and the likelihood of that ever happening is small:

Viz:  http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=244

2) Our bug-fixing manpower is limited, so we have to triage the bugs
hard, and discard² bug reports that are old, or refer to systems we don't
have access to, or are too nebulous, or are too "wouldn't it be nice if
we reimplemented everything in JavaScript"-ey.  That is, we should only
keep bug reports on the book that will realistically be handled by
someone within a reasonable time period.

Projects seem to start off as 1), and then shift to 2) after three
years, if they, at that point, can find some stooge actually willing to
sift through the 2.3k bug reports that are outstanding.  :-)

---
IV) "Discard" here means, "mark in a way that doesn't come up in the
default bug search/view".

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/