Bugs Reported Against a PPA

[Charlie Kravetz]

It has been brought up that we currently have no policy in place for
bugs reported against a Personal Package Archive(PPA) in launchpad.

The majority of bug reporters are attempting to help improve Ubuntu.
Without the use of PPA, the distribution loses valuable testing and
improvements. As a team, we do not have the resources to determine that
the reporter was not sent to the PPA file to test an improvement. The
PPA is not an authorized Ubuntu repository, however, no bug should be
invalid simply because it was reported against a PPA. I have seen
several developers on IRC and in launchpad request users test a package
in their PPA. If that package works, it may go on to be placed in the
distribution.

My opinion:

Bugs against a PPA should not be invalid bugs. They should be clearly
identified as part of bug triage as being against a PPA, and the PPA
owner should have a chance to decide what to do with the bug. This
could be easily accomplished by adding a PPA tag to the bugs, and/or
add [PPA] to the summary. 

Perhaps a better procedure that tags would be to create a package for
the PPA. As bug reporters will not normally have the knowledge to
create that package, it will become the job of the triage team. That
involves more work for a team with enough work already.

Myself, as QA leader for Xubuntu, have requested individuals to
subscribe me to bugs they report when using Xfce 4.6 from a PPA.
Hopefully, I will be able to upstream their bug to the developer before
it becomes invalid by a well meaning bug triager.

What do others think of a policy for these bug reports? Do you have
opinions/comments/questions on this?

-- 
Charlie Kravetz 
Linux Registered User Number 425914          [http://counter.li.org/]
Never let anyone steal your DREAM.           [http://keepingdreams.com]