Old bug reports

[Timothy Mayoh]

Sorry - I probably should have been more specific about marking bugs invalid
immediately; I was referring to when the bug really didn't have anywhere
enough information to work on it and no-one actually could reproduce it
other than the reporter or whoever claims that it affects them, and only if
they are all impossible to contact (as is already eventually done when there
is no more activity on an incomplete bug for more than 60 days anyway).

If the bug is already confirmed or triaged and can be reproduced in newer,
supported releases or the development release by other people, then I agree
it makes no sense to ask the original reporter to test to see if it exists
in a newer release just for the sake of it, if his/her version is still
within support.

Although to this day I see many people reporting bugs with unsupported
versions of Ubuntu who simply don't realise there is a newer version
available or haven't upgraded for whatever reason who could do with a little
push to switch to a current version, for their own benefit; for example I
believe that to be the case with these bug reports:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/827638
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/827000

I'm not saying that upgrading will necessarily automatically fix the bug in
every case, but it is always a good idea to be using a release which still
receives security/performance/reliability fixes either way.

On 24 August 2011 03:50, Micah Gersten <micahg at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> **
> Corrected top posting...
>
> On 08/23/2011 04:00 PM, Timothy Mayoh wrote:
>
> On 23 August 2011 21:45, Carl Ansell <afccarl1994 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  There are many old reports in launchpad that apply to unsupported
>> versions of Ubuntu, such as Dapper and Edgy.
>>
>>
>> As these releases are no longer supported, can these be marked as invalid?
>>
>>
>> I feel it would 'clean up' the bugs in launchpad and make it clear which
>> bugs are still relevant, but as someone new to the bugsquad, I don't want to
>> start messing with things that I shouldn't mess with.
>>
>>
>>  I believe the best approach would be to mark the report as incomplete,
> and then try and contact the original submitter with this canned response in
> the comments, assuming they are still active:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Responses#Release_has_reached_EOL . If they
> do not respond, then the bug would be automatically marked as invalid within
> 60 days anyway.
>
>  This is only good if the bug isn't reproducible in the devel release or in
> any release after it was reported (not saying they all have to be tested,
> but that if a user chooses to test an older release and can't reproduce,
> that should be sufficient).  Otherwise, just asking people to reproduce
> again was decided against in previous bugsquad meetings as it annoys
> reporters and dissuades people from reporting bugs.
>
>
>  Alternatively, if you are certain the original reporter and all other
> people the bug affects are no longer active in Launchpad - you can probably
> safely mark the bug as invalid immediately.
>
>  I don't agree with this.  Just because the person is no longer around
> doesn't make the bug invalid.  Please remember, the point of bug reports
> isn't to necessarily make people happy, but to find the defects and actually
> repair them eventually.
>
> Thanks,
> Micah
>
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