A responsible use of the "incomplete" status.

[Vincenzo Ciancia]

On 27/09/2007 Sarah Hobbs wrote:
> 
> You know, it's mails like this that make me really feel that it's not
> worth triaging bugs, or aiming for a reasonably decent QA.
> 

Pardon me, but how would you have reacted if the contents of my previous
e-mail had been "it's when I waste an hour in reboots just to provide a
kernel log for a crash, and then nobody acks it for 8 months, that I
really feel that it's not worth reporting bugs"? Luckily, it's not the
case. I keep reporting bugs, leaving them opened as long as they please
:) and even started triaging bugs for packages I care about. This does
not change the message that I wanted to send the developers and triagers
 in my previous e-mail.

I think there is a bit of misunderstanding in your reply: I didn't
complain about "the bug situation not being good enough". I think I
still have bugs opened from dapper, if I haven't closed'em for myself,
and wasn't complaining about them.

I complained about who marks a bug as "incomplete" sending it into a
limbo where it will neither be read by developers nor by triagers, and
never coming back to read replies. You can say whatever you want about
demotivating triagers, but I suspect that having people report a bug,
being asked for information, and never get a feedback, just consisting
in changing the status from "incomplete" to either "new" or "confirmed"
it's far from giving motivation to who reports bugs. A month or two is a
sufficient time to give an ack, or ask for more information, after, in
the end, it was _you_ who asked the information.

I don't think it's completely fair to set the status back to "new"
myself, since it's who asked me for more information, that has to ack
the info I provided is good. On the other hand, it's the best we can do
to give the report a chance to be read by someone else. So, I got a good
suggestion by asking on a public mailing list. Can you ask for more? :)

Vincenzo