Auto Bug Expiry on Launchpad

[Bryce Harrington]

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 06:19:07PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> On Friday, October 15, 2010 05:47:10 pm Bryce Harrington wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 03:44:17PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > > On Friday, October 15, 2010 09:31:38 am Deryck Hodge wrote:
> > > > These individual scripts will no longer be needed once we re-enable
> > > > auto expiry on Launchpad itself.
> > >
> > > Why are we convinced throwing away bugs is a good idea?
> > 
> > Thank you for helping to make Ubuntu better!
> > 
> > Unfortunately, you've not provided enough information for us to respond
> > to the issue you've raised.  We are marking your email Incomplete for
> > now; it will expire in 30 days if we do not hear from you by then.
> 
> Right.  That's the brush off we give people when we throw their bugs away.  It 
> doesn't explain why that's a good idea.  

To the contrary - it did prompt you to elaborate.  ;-)

> A bug may lack sufficient information about a problem to enable a developer to 
> immediately address it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't describe a real issue 
> with the system.  If the bug is left open, the odds are better that someone 
> else with the same problem might come along and pick it up and provide the 
> missing information if it's open, but incomplete than if it's marked invalid 
> and 'closed'.

In an ideal world I would agree with you, but unfortunately things
rarely work out that way.

A _bug report_ is not the same thing as a _bug_.  As best it's a grainy,
fuzzy photo of something that *might* have been a bug at one time.

Bug reports often are set to Incomplete if the issue is vague.  Often,
if the original reporter never replies to elaborate and clarify and the
bug is left open for months and months, someone else with a completely
different problem will eventually come along and, mistakenly thinking
they have the same problem, will add comments that don't help the
original reporter.  Further, they don't file a new bug report, so this
second bug is lost.

A _bug report_ also represents a conversation.  Where the reporter
didn't give a good enough description, the conversation is doubly
important.  Yet if the original reporter is not responding to questions
(any reply to a bug marked Incomplete will cause it to not expire), then
the conversation side has failed as well.

Our mission here is not to boil the ocean.  Our mission is to make
Ubuntu a better distribution.  Working on bug reports is one of several
ways we can invest invest time to achieve this.  Other activities such
as direct hardware testing, patch backporting, or coding can have
better payoff for the time invested.

Expiring bugs is not "trashing" them.  The bugs are still in the system,
and can be reopened if desired.  But this process communicates to users
that action is not likely to be taken on the bug report, and that the
bug itself may no longer be relevant.

Bryce