I just wanted to preface this that my intent has been to be frank with you, and I appreciate that you have done the same. I appreciate that you have a different perspective and I think it is actually a pretty common one.
So, take what I say for what it is worth, and I certainly won't be offended if you remain in disagreement, and if you feel that a different distro would better suit your needs I certainly wouldn't find that offensive at all either. Also, bear in mind that I speak for nobody but myself but I do think that some of my observations are fairly accurate in general, and most seem to agree with your own. On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 3:48 PM Michael Jones <gen...@jonesmz.com> wrote: > > On Sun, Feb 9, 2020 at 8:07 PM Rich Freeman <ri...@gentoo.org> wrote: >> >> You could have jumped through all the required hoops and still had it >> ignored. > > That's pretty horrible, honestly. Why isn't Gentoo doing better than that? Simple, "Gentoo" can't do anything - it has no hands, no feet, no brain. It is a collection of volunteers. They work on what they wish to work on. That means that some things end up being worked on by nobody. That said, plenty do work on proxy maintaining and IMO are doing better in this area than has been at some points in the past. > Yes, yes, Gentoo is run by volunteers, so on and so forth. But it's entirely > possible (and regularly accomplished in other organizations) to emphasise a > culture that actively tries to not ignore low hanging fruit for so long. Most devs work on the things that interest them. If your contribution is in an area that no devs find interesting, then you're offering low-hanging fruit that doesn't taste very good. It might be easy to grasp, but nobody wants to eat it. That is just an analogy. I'm not saying that NOBODY will find the contribution useful. But, it could very well be that no devs interested in proxy-maintaining happen to find it personally useful. >> > I'm not attempting to be contradictory for the sake of being >> > contradictory, but the situation is significantly more complicated >> > than what you said >> >> Not sure how that could be. I literally said "If you do report an >> issue it might or might not get fixed." I'm pretty sure that hits all >> the examples you supplied, being that it was basically a tautology. >> There simply are no guarantees. > > Honestly, this conversation is just making me less interested in contributing > to Gentoo in the future. Not only do 1-liner pull requests that fix broken > packages get rejected / not fixed for a year, but now I'm being replied to > with word-games when I try to discuss the issues that I face as an end-user. I completely get that you find the absence of any guarantee frustrating. I was just telling you the truth. You could do everything right and end up being completely ignored. This seems to match your own observations. That isn't meant as a word-game. Just as frank conversation. > The problem is that you're lying to people if you keep a bug in bugzilla open > for 10+ years. > > You know it won't be worked on, they know it won't be worked on. So just > close the bug. Actually, I don't agree with this. Leaving a bug open makes no statement at all about whether it will be worked on. I guess it is a bit like the debate about whether agnostics are atheists. :) It is entirely possible a 10 year old bug will get worked on - it just takes somebody interested to start looking at it. >> >> > Surely if something hasn't been addressed in 20 years, it won't be? >> >> If nobody can bother to fix 20 year old bugs on some piece of >> software, why would you be running it today, and thus why would you be >> searching for bugs for it? > > > Then why is it still in the Gentoo package repository? Maybe the package works fine for the most part. Just because a package has a bug doesn't mean that it is useless. Why remove a mostly-working piece of software over a minor bug? > > If it's not in the Gentoo package repository, why is there an open bug in > bugzilla about it? You can file a bug to request having something added to the repository, so there are actually many bugs pertaining to software that isn't in the repo. >> The only person getting reminded is the requester. A maintainer that >> is deliberately ignoring bugs will be sending bot mail to /dev/null. >> If requesters start pinging devs in other ways to get their attention >> about such bugs, that seems more likely to just have these devs become >> more aggressive about blocking such attempts from users to >> communicate. That's probably part of why so few devs are on this list >> at all. :) > > Why is that person allowed to be a maintainer for that package then? Sounds > like a pretty complete abandonment of responsibility. Just because somebody ignores a bug doesn't mean that they aren't maintaining a package. Suppose a maintainer ignores 99 bugs and fixes 1? Let's fix that by making them no longer a maintainer. Now the package has no maintainer, so instead of 99% of future bugs being ignored for it, instead 100% of future bugs are ignored. :) All bugs involve effort and reward, and also a skillset to fix. A maintainer might perceive the effort for a bug isn't worth the reward, or may not have the skillset to fix it. > There's a "WONTFIX" resolution in bugzilla. If the maintainer isn't going to > fix it, and they mark the issue as WONTFIX, then I won't waste my time > waiting. I'll either find another way to do what I'm trying to do, or i'll > fix the problem myself, or simply do without. Maintainers WONTFIX bugs all the time if they know they won't be fixed. However, many bugs fall into the category that they're definitely bugs that should be fixed, but the maintainer reviewing the bug doesn't have the skills to fix that bug in a manner that is worth their time. Maybe another maintainer will want to fix it. Maybe another user will want to contribute a patch. It seems a bit much to WONTFIX a valid bug simply because a particular maintainer doesn't want to fix it right away. > I'm not suggesting rules or actions related to policing the behavior of > Gentoo Developers, because I've seen first hand in the mailing list that the > Gentoo Developers will not be amused, to put it mildly, at that kind of > suggestion. :) Ultimately devs work on what they want to work on. As long as they're making net-positive contributions this is generally considered a good thing for the project. If a dev ignores 99 useful suggestions and does 1 positive thing, and doesn't otherwise do anything negative, they've made Gentoo a better place. Booting them would just mean that they aren't doing anything positive. It is another matter when they're doing something negative. And I do hope you don't see my being frank as a negative. I think a lot of projects would just put a PR face on this sort of interaction. I do that sort of thing at work all the time and I could give you a bazillion neutral non-committal answers to basically stall you into oblivion until you quietly went away. That isn't my intent. I don't get paid by the number of users we have - I hope that Gentoo is useful for many people, but in the end I realize it isn't the right solution for every problem and I don't try to pretend that it is otherwise. > It's not a perfect solution, but perfect is the enemy of good, after all. I agree. My main objection to your solution is that it is more cosmetic, and I tend to prefer non-committal responses in the absence of knowledge. I think that WONTFIX should be reserved for bugs that we KNOW won't be fixed. If we are 99.999% sure it won't get fixed but there is a 0.001% chance somebody might come along and fix it, because it really is something that should be fixed even if it will take a lot of work, then I'd prefer to see it stay open. But, that is a matter of taste. Others probably feel otherwise, and I bet plenty of devs do WONTFIX bugs like these. I don't maintain their packages and they can do as they wish with them. > Why is Gentoo shipping packages that aren't maintained? Isn't that what the > "last rights" emails I get from time to time are all about? Those tend to be applied to packages that aren't maintained and which have serious problems. If a package seems to work fine for the most part not having a maintainer isn't considered a reason to last-rite it. It depends on the severity of bugs. > > Nevertheless, thank you for discussing it with me > You're welcome. You're hardly the first person to disagree with me. :) I'm also not in any particular position of power when it comes to how bugs are handled. You can always make a proposal to automatically close old bugs. I'd probably start with the Bug Wranglers, though you could always bring an issue to the Council if you don't feel you're getting the desired response there. They've certainly been known to disagree with me at times too. :) -- Rich
