The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has been posted to gmane.linux.debian.alioth.reportbug.devel as well.
Simon Waters <si...@technocool.net> writes: > If Debian procedures ensure Grave bugs are reviewed as promptly as > Critical bugs The severity of a bug is, as I understand it, intentionally divorced from the priority of attending to that bug. There is no necessary procedural connection between them. > (but then why have a Critical level in that case?) The different severity levels are well-defined <URL:http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#severities>, and more importantly those definitions are defined only in terms of the *effect* of the bug. The severity is easily discussed in terms of facts. This allows the severity to be independently, and hopefully dispassionately, assessed by anyone without a stake in getting the bug fixed. > I appreciate it is difficult, as there are competing interests in > reducing spurious reporting of critical bugs, and also of ensuring > genuinely critical issues are dealt with promptly. Debian bugs are attended to largely by volunteers. To my knowledge, there is no procedural “priority” for bug reports, beyond the coarse-grained “if this bug isn't fixed by the time we release, the package gets removed” threshold. The priority of addressing the bug is a much more socially-defined and inherently subjective property. It's good that there is no unnecessary entangling of the severity with the priority: this allows the person-to-person negotiation of priority to remain squarely outside the factual description of the bug's effect. -- \ “My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves | `\ to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise with my | _o__) aspirations.“ —Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860-09-23 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org