On 9/16/22 9:40 AM, Tobias Frost wrote: > On Fri, Sep 16, 2022 at 08:47:19AM -0400, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote: > > On 9/16/22 12:12 AM, Nilesh Patra wrote: > > > On Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 06:17:02PM -0400, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote: > > > > To put it in the most brief terms, I come to that conclusion based on > > > > what > > > > many people are telling me: Debian maintainers cannot fix bugs in > > > > software > > > > because they are just volunteers. > > > > > > That statement is incorrect. People _can_ and _do_ fix a lot of bugs when > > > they have time. There are a lot of DDs/DMs/contributors fixing a lot of > > > bugs on a daily basis > > > for that matter. You could consider taking a look at -devel-changes ML if > > > you'd like to. > > > > > > > That explains why I almost always am at > > > > least annoyed by one or two bugs when running Debian software, and > > > > sometimes > > > > after an update the computer is totally unusable until I can debug it > > > > and find > > > > the fix, because volunteers don't have the time to do it for me. That > > > > is what > > > > most everyone on debian-user is telling me. Do you disagree with what > > > > they > > > > say? > > > > > > Well, sometimes bugs do sit around for a bit, yes; but you are presenting > > > it in > > > a much way that it makes the situation look worse than it actually is. > > > The resolution is quick quite a few times (to my > > > experience and I am a DD myself) but yes, sometimes they do sit around > > > for a while. > > > > That's easy to explain why your bugs are fixed quickly. You are a DD, so > > your > > bugs are important. I am not a DD so my bugs are not as important to the > > maintainers who have a greater responsibility to respond to a DD's bug than > > to an unknown user's bug. That is the way it should be. No problem here, and > > please no one reply and say I am complaining. I am not. I am just seeing > > how things work at Debian and I think they work fairly well. > > Please stop with your passive-aggressive rhethoric. > Claiming that we don't care about equally our users is … inappropiate and > greatly insulting > to the contributors (regardless of their status in the project). > > You need to stop that. Right now. > > > > > > > > In that case, it is nice to file good bug reports (as Andy told you) and > > > if you have a > > > patch, that's even better. You could consider to ping maintainers after a > > > week or so if > > > you think it is important. > > > > Thanks for the advice. I think a week is way to short. They probably would > > think I am a nag and a troll if I did that. I usually wait six months and > > they > > still ignore the bug sometimes. > > > > > And if you think something very critical is broken, you could > > > even raise the severity of the bug, I don't see a lot of problem with it. > > > > > > And yes, sometimes the maintainers of a package _can_ be AFK too, > > > > For six months? > > Even if it six years, a maintainer has absolutly the right to ignore any > report, > be it mine, the DPLs, from someone else or yours. Remeber, unless you pay > them, > they do not owe you anything.
Let me see if I understand. I read in the Debian documents that Debian has no BDFL, no central authority. Yet every package maintainer can become a BDFL? If that's true, then that Debian is a collection of thousands of BDFLs, given that there are thousands of packages to be maintained. Like medieval Europe, a bunch of little warlords fighting off bad guys. The only problem, sometimes those little warlords, in their mistaken zeal, kill off some good guys. But I do not think the analogy of a bunch of little warlords fighting off bad guys accurately describes Debian, but that is what Debian could become if that type of thinking holds.