The need for apport hooks (was: Re: SRUs for typo fixes in descriptions)

[C de-Avillez]

On 08/04/2011 12:28 PM, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> On jeu., 2011-08-04 at 07:36 -0700, Brian Murray wrote:
>> This should also be modified to include:
>>
>>  * ... Apport package hook additions 
> Could be not? Or could we move those out of the software binaries? One
> complain we often get in reviews and online comments is the new of
> updates showing up in update-manager on stable ubuntu versions. It's
> quite annoying to download a non trivial amount of binaries just because
> there was a one line update in a debug hook.
>
> Do you have datas that showing that most of the bugs are coming from
> stable versions? I would rather think that most of the useful technical
> feedback is coming from unstable versions (we do turn apport off on
> stable series as well), stable user tend to report feedback (things they
> like or not, design issues, etc) rather than bugs than benefit from
> apport informations usually.

This has been discussed before, with no consensus.  I will try to
summarise the points:

1. changing/adding an apport hook right now means a new package
build, no matter how large/small the change.

2. On stable releases, any change has to be approved (either SRU, or
security).

3. Apport is disabled on stable releases -- which pretty much means
no hooks are driven.

4. Apport is disabled on stable releases -- which pretty much means
we have *no* idea of how many/frequent/bothersome some failures that
would be caught by apport are. So Seb's question on how many bugs
are reported from stable releases is unanswerable.

5. When an user complains about a bug/crash on stable, we suggest to
enable apport, repeat, and report.

So, obviously, we have conflicting issues here. By (1), (2), and
(3)  there is no need to have apport hooks on SRUs. By (4) and (5),
we need apport hooks.

<side comment> I think we are doing it wrong: we should collect
crashes on all supported releases. </side comment>

Previously, we briefly discussed having an apport-hooks package (and
making the hooks --theoretically -- easier to be updated). But we
also have issues here: all hooks would be installed, no matter if
the respective package is installed; space; eventually the
apport-hooks package will be a monster package, etc.

So. In my view, we *need* apport hooks, and we need them applicable
to all releases, stable or devel. So we need a SRU process that
contemplates apport-hooks.

What we have to decide is how to package the beasts.

Cheers.

..C..

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