On 09/02/2016 01:46 PM, Raphaël Halimi wrote:
> Oh, I am a "regular end user" now ? What on earth makes you think that I
> use unstable only for the "pleasure" of having bleeding-edge versions of
> my software ? Why is it so far fetched from your point of view that I,
> too, also might develop Debian packages (personal *and* official ones),
> and need the latest versions of devscripts, git-buildpackage, lintian,
> et al on my development machine ?

You are clearly are regular end user if you don't understand how bug reporting
and fixing works in the FOSS community. If you need updated versions of
certain packages, you are supposed to use Debian Backports, not unstable.

Again, if you want to use unstable because you need updated versions of
certain packages then Debian unstable is definitely the wrong distribution!

>> People like you constantly ignore the fact that at the other end of
>> the bug tracker you will find people which are receiving all these
>> bug report mails and I can tell you that if you get more than half a
>> dozen bug reports describing the same problem over and over again you
>> will loose your patience and tamper as well.
> 
> "People like me" ? What exactly do you mean by that ?

People who will always resort to reporting a bug first instead of doing
some research to figure out whether this is maybe a known issue.

Filing a bug report should always be your *last* resort, not the first
one.

> Also, please remind me when I showed to "constantly ignore" that Debian
> developers get a lot of e-mail traffic due to bug reports. Don't you
> think I already know that after using Debian for seventeen years ?

Apparently you do. Otherwise we wouldn't have this discussion, would we?

> Please show me a bug that I reported that was already (or that
> I didn't merge by myself very quickly after realizing it). I honestly
> take kindly to learn from my mistakes.

This one? It has already been reported as #836246.

>> No, not really. The pinpointing is done *upstream*. As I have
>> explained many many times, this is the Debian bug tracker which
>> tracks Debian-specific bugs. The bug you are seeing is an upstream
>> bug and therefore affects all distributions and therefore belongs to
>> the upstream bug tracker where it will reach the people who can fix
>> the actual code. Reporting your bug upstream will dramatically
>> increase the bug fixing process and also mean less burden and stress
>> for downstream. It also makes sure all distributions are receiving
>> the fix as quickly as possible.
> 
> That's not what the Debian documentation says (I mean the official
> Debian documentation, not the wiki):
> 
>> Don't file bugs upstream

Yes, and I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement because the
people who usually fix the bugs are upstream, not in Debian.


> It means that I should report the bug to Debian first, and that *you*
> decide afterwards if it should be forwarded upstream.

Why should I do that for you when you can do that yourself perfectly
fine? Do you expect me to do your homework?

> Ironically, this is *especially true* in this particular case, since
> upstream still uses GTK2 by default, and building the whole MATE desktop
> against GTK3 was a decision made solely by the Debian maintainers (and,
> IMHO, not a very clever one, since the Gnome devs, who took over GTK a
> long time ago, are notorious for being oblivious to anything non-Gnome -
> especially other desktop environments, which they see as competitors to
> their "brand" (I quote) - and happily (or is it purposefully ? I may be
> a bit paranoid here, but who knows) break GTK every six months).

GTK2 is going to be abandoned sooner or later. Also, the decision was
made by people who also happen to be MATE upstream. But again, you
are complaining about things breaking in unstable where breaking
things is *expected*.

> I gladly admit that I forgot to add the "upstream" tag, but you can't
> seriously blame me for reporting bugs in the Debian BTS only because
> they come from upstream, whereas the official Debian documentation
> explicitly says otherwise.

Again, I fully disagree with the official Debian documentation here
and once I find the fime, I will request the documentation to be changed
because routing all bug reports through Debian will just add an
extra layer of indirection which is never good.

Really, there is no point in reporting the bug to Debian if it turns
out to be an upstream issue. I have reported tons of bugs upstream,
heck, I usually even test the latest git revision from upstream to
make sure I'm not reporting something that has already been fixed.

Why annoy people with things they already know or have taken care
of? All you achieve is annoying them or keep them from doing useful
things as opposed to reading redundant or invalid bug reports.

>> Thank you. My advise would also be to use another distribution
>> altogether, I advise using something other than a development
>> release, then you won't be bothered anymore by things being broken
>> during *development*. I would also suggest learning the difference
>> between upstream and distribution downstream and understanding when
>> to report bugs upstream and when to report them downstream.
> 
> For both points, see above.

Again, if you're using Debian unstable because you need updated versions
of selected packages then you definitely made the wrong choice. Use stable
and install these packages from backports. This way you are guaranteed
not to run into sudden breakages on your production machines and also
avoid contact with grumpy Debian Developers like me. It will be more
relaxed for you and me.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaub...@debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de
  `-    GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546  0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913

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