Patches?

[Scott Dier]

Personally I think its best to fix upstream first.  If upstream fixes it 
in CVS a different way, it stinks to be stuck with a different solution 
-- especially if the two solutions have different behavior.  Then, when 
upstream decides on the 'right' fix, the packager could (at their 
option) bring down the patch into the stable release.

Of course, there are the cases when upstream either isn't going to fix 
it, doesn't care, or doesn't exist.  Those times are really up to the 
packager.  Trivial fixes are not a huge deal to just put in either -- 
its just when it changes how an app works generally that it can become 
an issue.

Patch in the bug at least notifies the packager that there is a fix out 
there at least, too.  If its applicable to upstream, I would send it 
into the upstream bug system and then link (or reference) it from the 
Ubuntu bug.

Thanks,

Shawn McMahon wrote:
> Ok, let's say I found a small bug in something that's in Ubuntu, and
> filed it.  Let's further say that a while later, I got to thinking about
> the fix and it was trivial; in fact it'd already been found for a
> similar case, and just hadn't been implemented for this case.
> 
> Let's further say that I know precisely squatola about contributing
> patches to Ubuntu.
> 
> What would be the proper etiquette?  Should I just put a diff of the
> file into the bug report to help the maintainer, or should I jump
> through a few more hoops and submit an actual patch?  If the latter, are
> there any resources to help me do it right?
> 
> P.S. Further complicating matters, our hypothetical bug is in upstream,
> and our hypothetical fix would work there as it's to files that Ubuntu
> doesn't change.
> 
> 


-- 
Scott Dier <dieman at ringworld.org>