Re: some bugs

[Chris Chabot <chabotc reviewboard com>]

Luis Villa wrote:

> [..] For my part as bugmaster:
> Bugs that don't get reported in bugzilla don't get fixed... I hear
> people bitch in IRC and other places that 'feature foo doesn't work.' I
> can, and do, bitch/cajole/what have you at people to fix feature foo.
> But I don't/can't if they aren't filed. DON'T ASSUME THE MAINTAINER
> KNOWS IT IS A PROBLEM... people assume it is. And that's very often not
> the case. If you file a bug, and the maintainer already knows, then
> great; they've got a report they can use to track the problem. If you
> file a bug, and they didn't know about it, then... great. They might fix
> it. They definitely weren't going to fix it before. [..]
A question related to this though. I filed around 80 bugs in bugzilla so 
far, and for a to large a percentage, i get the feeling the maintainers 
didn't even look at the bug i filed.

In a lot of cases, the product in question has changed to often in 
various new releases the bug entries are no longer relevant, and in 
other cases, the bug keeps its open status indefinatly without anyone 
leaving comments, asking questions or closing the bug..

To often i get to close my own bugs, since the report is no longer 
relevant over time, without anyone ever looking at the bug.

Admitedly some maintainers are very responsive and make good use of 
bugzilla, and it is a pleasure to try to help them solve problems, but 
to often i get the feeling the bug reporting could be in vain.

Is there something we (bug reporters) could do to make bugzilla more 
usable and more populair with the maintainers?

What i am worried about is that if a situation like i described above is 
allowed to exist for to long, it will turn into a self forfilling 
prophesy. So many non relevant bug reports, that a developer can not 
find any usefull information, and so little developer activity that no 
one wants to report bugs any more.


Just wondering how i can help do my part to help,

   -- Chris