Re: Bug database for diffutils

[Karl Berry]

Hi Denver,

    It seems to me that having a bug database (ie. Bugzilla) for diffutils

Savannah provides bug database support and many GNU projects make use of
that, to varying degrees.  Looking at
https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/diffutils, I see diffutils isn't one
of them, though.

Historically, many core GNU packages, including diffutils, are
maintained by one person, or at most a couple.  In such circumstances,
the overhead of entering and updating bugs would take significant time
away from actually maintaining the program.  It's something that each
maintainer decides individually.

Also, most packages have dedicated mailing lists, which makes it
plausible to search for past reports.  Unfortunately, diffutils is
lumped into bug-gnu-utils, although it's still possible ...

Speaking for myself, I maintain Texinfo, and although I enable the bugs
feature on savannah and people can use it if they want to, I can't
possibly attempt to actually keep it updated -- but that doesn't mean
bugs get lost.  I have a mailbox of several hundred pending reports :(.
If there were more people actively working on the project, then it might
be a different story, but in fact, I am the only one, and dealing with
the bugdb gains me nothing.

(Also, most core GNU packages predate http, let alone online bug
databases, although admittedly that doesn't much matter.)

Cheers,
Karl