[Sugar-devel] tracking upstream bugs

[Jonas Smedegaard]

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On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 09:33:49AM +1800, David Farning wrote:
>Is the upstream bug tracking feature of lauchpad correctly set up to 
>push Sugar bugs through debian or directly up to the Sugar Labs bug 
>tracker?  If not, should I follow up?

I have no knowledge on Ubuntu-specific mechanisms like their BTS, so 
cannot tell you specifically about above.

Passing on bugreports upstream is generally A Good Thing(tm).

I believe, however, that it makes best sense for bugreports to be passed 
back upstream through same channels as code is pulled downstream. That 
is, when Ubuntu users file bugreports against packages derived from 
Debian, it makes most sense to me that Ubuntu package maintainers file a 
bugreport against the origin Debian package. And similarly file a 
bugreport against Sugarlabs for non-local bugs in packages packaged 
directly from Sugarlabs.

Also, passing on bugreports should only be done when relevant: Ubuntu 
package maintainers should in each and every case consider if the bug is 
likely to be tied to upstream code/packaging or only relevant for their 
own customizations or system environment. In other words: Don't just 
blindly pass all bugreports upstream!


So if you (David) want Ubuntu to report to Sugarlabs _instead_ of to 
Debian then I disagree: Short-circuiting reporting chain might be 
beneficial short-term (by reducing risk of loosing or slowing down info) 
but hurts long-term interests of code-sharing IMHO.

If Ubuntu is able to handle reporting back to multiple upstreams, i.e. 
bugs in Ubuntu-repackaged Debian-packaged Sugarlabs-originated software 
reported to Ubuntu should ideally be reported back to _both_ Sugarlabs 
and Debian, that would be good. Especially if including references to 
those other bugreports (not only reference to originating bugreport).

I suspect, however, that the fundamental concept of Launchpad is to keep 
such info on relations between BTSes only in Launchpad, not to pass it 
on in the way most suitable to each BTS. I would be happy to be proven 
wrong :-)


  - Jonas

- -- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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