Re: Bugzilla summary

[Yo Ric Dude <ricdude toad net>]

Tim Janik wrote:
> 
> i find "BLOCKER" a bit odd.
> first, what do you mean with "Blocks development and/or testing work",
> at the point where people have to submit bug reports to notify maintainers
> that e.g. a Makefile or a C file in CVS is plain broken, a project can
> probably be considered dead.
> second, intuitively i'd think "BLOCKER" applies to releases, but that's
> actually misleading since MAJOR and CRITICAL already are release blockers.
> third, i don't think it's obvious that BLOCKER is more severe than CRITICAL,
> i mean something that you really _have_ to fix ASAP, is, well, "critical".
> trying to think of something more severe, the only reasonable thing i come
> up with is "fatal", but then again i'm still confused as to why we'd need
> something more severe than CRITICAL.

BLOCKERs are valid in the case where someone has added a source
file in a project Makefile, but has forgotten to add the files
to the cvs repository.  If new code requires linking against 
those files, or a new header file, further development is blocked
until that is fixed.  BLOCKERs may also occurr where a developer 
is working on one section of code, and inadvertently breaks an
unrelated section of code that their suite of pre-ckeckin tests 
(assuming they exist) fails to catch.  The developers themselves
have no idea that what they've broken is crucial to the continued
development or use to other people, because they don't realize 
that they've broken something unrelated to their current line of 
work.  The BLOCKER bugs are considered more severe than critical
because they prevent *other* people from developing or seriously
using the software until that bug is fixed.  The key is that they
block *development*, not a release.  This will be especially 
crucial once API adjustments come into play for 1.4 and 2.0, and 
packages update on their own time schedule.

-- ebm
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