[FreeBSD-Announce] FreeBSD bug tracking moves from GNATS to Bugzilla

[John Marino]

On 6/4/2014 02:34, Mark Linimon wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 03, 2014 at 01:50:23PM -0700, Eitan Adler wrote:
>>> I don't concede killing anonymous means killing trivial bug reporting,
>>> but if that was the case: Oh well, I guess we have to focus on
>>> non-trivial bugs.
>>
>> Trivial bugs are important too.
> 
> I'll echo eadler a bit here, but with a different emphasis.
> 
> What _I_ consider a trivial bug is based on my own past experiences
> with FreeBSD.  Someone who is new to it and is submitting their first
> bug may not see it as trivial.  We don't wish to discourage them.

And the barrier put forth in front of them is a valid email address.  So
they can't be bothered to provide that, yet simultaneously expect real
man-power to be spent of their issue?  Really on them personally because
they are certainly not reporting for the greater good of the OS at this
point.

Due to user newness, the issue is more likely to be user error than a
real bug, trivial or not.

> 
> Discouraging people from contributing is counterproductive.  We need
> more contributors, not less.
> 
> I know for certain that people in the past have given up after submitting
> PRs that were never answered.  While I know we don't have the manpower to
> deal with all of them, that should at least be our ideal.
> 

Give the very real limitation on "manpower", we should be realistic --
not idealistic.  I too have seen a ton of PRs that are frankly useless.
 They don't provide any detail other than "it doesn't work" (symptoms,
platform, what they were doing, sometimes what "it" is...).  I'm
guessing most of us didn't join for advocacy reasons.  I am not going to
jump every time somebody sniffs around FreeBSD, and it sounds like this
isn't possible to do anyway.  So lets help the users that really want help.

John