Backtracing, Invalidated Bugs and Quality

[Bryce Harrington]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:20:38AM -0400, Paul Smith wrote:
> Also, it seems to me that if you tell someone their bug is "invalid"
> that doesn't inspire them to come back with more information or send
> more bugs in the future.  On the other hand, if you mark the bug as
> "need help" or similar, then they know what they need to do next time.
> It's more encouraging than discouraging.

I don't know about everyone else, but I always close such bugs with a
statement such as, "Please check with a newer version of Ubuntu, and
don't hesistate to reopen it with the additional requested info if it
still occurs."

>From my experience users seem to have no problem re-opening bugs (often
erroneously!)

In any case, closing old expired bugs that haven't received a response
is pretty standard operating procedure all across open source.  Else
you'd be drowning in bug reports and not be able to identify the good
ones, that can be solved.

Bryce