Re: [Re: Bug reporting [Was: Promoting greater integration between testers!:)]]

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Tue, 2003-07-01 at 02:51, Murray Cumming wrote:
> Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com> wrote:
> > Beyond that, given a few hours a week, what I'd probably try to do is
> > publish an easy-fix list for GTK+. (If you query for PATCH_NEEDED,
> > that's a roughly the right result.)
> 
> This should be able to do that for you, assuming that you use the easy-fix
> keyword:
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/gnome-23-report.html

I don't really like using the easy-fix keyword for GTK+, because
people typically self-apply it (*), to bugs that variously:

 A) Would take an experienced GTK+ hacker several months of
    concentrated work to fix. 

 B) Would be easy to fix, if we didn't mind breaking every
    single existing GTK+ program out there.

 C) Include a 1 line patch that papers over some problem in 
    entirely the wrong place.

 D) Really are easy to fix, but for that reason, aren't really
    that useful for volunteers to work on:

     reporter> "separate is mispelled in a comment at line 45 of foo.c"
     volunteer> "Here's a patch to fix it"
     me> Looks good, fine to commit
     volunteer> I don't have CVS access
     me> OK, committed

At best, easy-fix ends up meaning "easy for the maintainers of
the package to fix". 

The bugs that I want to tag are bugs that would take someone with
a bit of experience programming GTK+ somewhere between 20 minutes 
and a day to fix. The main distinguishing characteristic of these
bugs is not that they are *easy*, but rather that they are 
straightforward. It's pretty clear what needs to be done, someone 
just has to do it.

Browsing the easy-fix bugs from other modules, I see very little
that would be appealing for an incoming hacker to work on. The
whole easy-fix concept, I think, is a bit busted.

The two keywords I use for GTK+ are:

 HELPWANTED: This bug needs investigation to figure out what's
  going on, I don't think usual GTK+ suspects are going to 
  do it. (Usually goes along with 'portability')
 
 PATCH_NEEDED: it's clear what needs to be done, someone should
  go and do it.

Regards,
					Owen

(*) Yes, I know the keyword description says not to self-apply
    it, but people apparently don't read that.