NEEDINFO about NEEDINFO

Christian Stimming stimming at tuhh.de
Thu Apr 13 04:41:26 EDT 2006


Hi,

(FYI: I'm out of town and away from emails until next week, April 18th)

Am Mittwoch, 12. April 2006 17:35 schrieb Chris Shoemaker:
>         One problem I have with the current use is that it doesn't
> seem to work well with bugzilla's default reports.  Bugzilla treats
> NEEDINFO as "on ice", effectively resolved, so the bug won't likely
> get any attention from anyone not already on the cc list for the bug.

Actually that statement strongly depends on the way how you are using 
bugzilla. Indeed all bug queries that can be reached from  
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/browse.cgi?product=GnuCash will completely ignore 
NEEDINFO ones. However 
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/page.cgi?id=reports.html lists a query "NEEDINFO 
reports which have been updated" which will list exactly those, so there 
*are* ways in which these bugs will get some attention. And as a third way of 
using bugzilla, everyone can simply bookmark or store a particular query that 
includes the NEEDINFO bugs as well. (I happen to use that third way, so when 
I browse through the gnucash bugs, the NEEDINFO ones are listed for me as 
well.)

> 1) Labeling a bug NEEDINFO should mean "this bug is INVALID or
> INCOMPLETE without more info."
>
> This implies that NEEDINFO means "we really NEED more info in order
> for this bug report to be any use at all", not simply "we WANT more
> info because it sure would help."

Yes. Absolutely.

>   Let me amend my definition: NEEDINFO is for bugs that, in
> the absence of additional info, would still be resolved anyway, either
> as INCOMPLETE, INVALID, or, as Derek points out, even FIXED.
> 
> I think the usage you describe is the intended one: for bugs you don't
> want to look at anymore (and don't want any other dev to have to look
> at anymore).

Yes.

>   1a) Stack traces with debugging symbols are always useful, even if
> the reporter doesn't know what they were doing when it occurred.
> These shouldn't be marked NEEDINFO.

No, I don't agree in general. For example, if the bug report doesn't mention 
the gnucash version (1.8? SVN?), then the stack trace can be from whatever 
gnucash version has been released. In those cases a stack trace by itself is 
IMHO not at all useful, and unless there has been more info added, the report 
will be closed as INVALID.

>   1b) Bugs with reproduction instructions are useful unless you know
> that the instructions don't work.  These shouldn't be marked NEEDINFO.

Also, I wouldn't agree in general. As you might have noticed, my primary 
NEEDINFO question is for the exact gnucash version -- if this is unknown and 
the reproduction instructions don't obviously imply a particular version, 
then the bug is IMHO INCOMPLETE unless there is more information.

> 2) Whoever labels a bug NEEDINFO is agreeing to notice when the
> requested info has been provided and to ensure the bug is relabeled
> appropriately.  

Yes.

> Practically, that means joining the cc list. 

No. Depends on the way you are using bugzilla. If you use stored queries that 
wil show the NEEDINFO bugs as well, you don't have to be on the cc list to 
watch them.

> 3) We should go through the current NEEDINFO bugs and if they're
> really useless as-is, we can either leave them as NEEDINFO or close
> them.  If they're not useless, we can relabel them as UNCONFIRMED or
> NEW or something else.
>
>   3a) The implication is that bugs currently marked NEEDINFO need to
> be re-evaluated for usefulness and that the bar for closing them is
> not necessarily any lower than for UNCONFIRMED bugs.  But, in the
> future, NEEDINFO would mean that the bug has already been deemed
> useless without more info.

Yes.

I'd suggest adding the outcome of this discussion to the wiki, 
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Bugzilla or similar. Thanks for clarifying this 
issue.

Christian



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