How to use the new Launchpad status?

[Micah Gersten]

On 07/07/2010 01:08 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 07, 2010 13:17:19 Bruno Girin wrote:
>> On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 11:48 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, July 07, 2010 11:29:36 Evan wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Bruno Girin <brunogirin at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 09:53 -0500, Benjamin Root wrote:
>>>>>> Sounds like to me that it is a finer grained version of "Invalid".
>>>>>> The idea being that rather than possibly insulting the OP with an
>>>>>> "Invalid" statement, one could mark it as "Opinion" where it is
>>>>>> effectively closed, but leaves open the possibility that it might
>>>>>> have to be revisited later.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I guess this helps to distinguish between the bugs that are
>>>>>> blatantly Invalid and the bugs that might be a little bit more
>>>>>> ambiguous.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At least, that is my interpretation...
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks, that sounds like a sensible interpretation. So in terms of
>>>>> triaging, if the bug is one that we would normally set to invalid
>>>>> because even though the software does not behave as the OP thinks it
>>>>> should, the reasons for changing it are not clear cut, we would
>>>>> assign it the Opinion status rather than the Invalid status.
>>>>>
>>>>> I suspect that in this case, bugs in that status should also have a
>>>>> severity of Wishlist?
>>>>>
>>>>> A new standard response to use when setting bugs to that status would
>>>>> be good. What about the following?
>>>>>
>>>>>        Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping
>>>>>        to make Ubuntu better. While we appreciate that the software
>>>>>        does not behave as you expect, we consider that it is a
>>>>>        matter of opinion whether it should be changed to accommodate
>>>>>        your requirement. This bug is being set to "Opinion" to
>>>>>        indicate that, although we do not consider it invalid, we
>>>>>        will not start work on resolving it until we are satisfied
>>>>>        that there are enough details on how to change the software
>>>>>        without
>>>>>        compromising usability or existing features.
>>>>
>>>> Great. I find the last sentence a bit of a mouthful though. How about:
>>>>        Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to
>>>>        make Ubuntu better. While we appreciate that the software does
>>>>        not behave as you expect, we consider it a matter of
>>>>        opinion whether or not the behavior should be changed as you
>>>>        suggest. This bug is being set to "Opinion" to indicate
>>>>        that. Although we do not consider it invalid, we will not start
>>>>        work on resolving it until we have a solution that solves your
>>>>        problem without compromising existing functionality and
>>>>        usability.
>>>>
>>>> Just my two cents,
>>>> Evan
>>>
>>> I'd prefer we don't use it at all.  I get stacks of bug mail with not
>>> very useful discussion already.  Just about the last thing we need to do
>>> in the bug tracker is encourage more of it.
>>
>> This is why the Launchpad devs are currently working on new subscription
>> features which should allow to have more control over what lands in your
>> mailbox. Once that's available, you should be able to significantly
>> reduce the amount of email you're not interested in.
> 
> Future features that may some day reduce the amount of unwanted bug mail I get 
> aren't relevant to the current discussion.
> 
>>> If a bug is Invalid or Won't Fix, then the bug tracker isn't the right
>>> place to discuss it.
>>
>> Well, if they added that new status, it's because they identified that
>> there's a need for it. You do have bugs that are reported that are
>> really a matter of opinion as to whether they should be addressed or
>> not. And now that it's there, we (as BugSquad) will have to deal with it
>> one way or another.
>>
> This wouldn't be the first time a feature with minimal or negative utility got 
> added to Launchpad.
> 
> My recommendation is if you see it set, have a canned answer along the lines 
> of "This is not a bug status that is used in Ubuntu (although other projects 
> hosted on Launchpad may use it).  The bug status is being changed back to 
> [whatitwasbefore]."
> 
> Scott K
> 

Here's the response that hggdh proposed on the bugsquad list:

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and help make Ubuntu
better. This bug is being marked OPINION; this indicates we will not
work on it, but all are free to express their opinions. It is possible
that, in the future, we may revisit this bug.

If Ubuntu isn't going to use the status, this should be decided soon and
the appropriate lists should be copied.

Micah