Re: How can I report bugs in gnulib?

[Jim Meyering]

Reuben Thomas wrote:
> On 10 January 2012 18:14, Reuben Thomas <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>
>>> It is good practice when asking for help (and getting it)
>>> to volunteer the patch that would have saved you some trouble.
>>> Since you've just hit a particular problem you are perhaps better
>>> placed than anyone else to propose a fix.
>
> You've hit the a particular problem I have here: sometimes when I'm
> deep in the middle of something else I just want to report a bug and
> move on, and not feel I'm a Bad Person if I don't provide a patch.
> With most free software, one gets that choice: either you can patch a
> bug yourself (and get the credit and warm fuzzies) or you can just
> report a bug (and have no assurance that it will be fixed).
>
> The care the gnulib maintainers give to maintaining patch quality is
> laudable and understandable, but it does make the process of preparing
> a patch peculiarly time-consuming and frustrating. When working on
> gnulib, the "fun hacking" vibe quickly morphs into "arid deathmarch"
> for me. I do appreciate that this is largely because gnulib takes care
> of all the dull stuff so that I don't have to when I'm working on
> other projects. But there's only so much jot-and-tittling I can take
> at a time. In the present instance, I passed on preparing a patch when
> I was already in the middle of preparing two others. I'd like to get
> some work that really feels like actual work done today, not just some
> gnulib fixes.
>
> So, is there a way I can simply file a bug report without a guilty
> conscience? Note that that can mean "a bug report for which I later
> provide a match", just as likely as "a bug report that gets added to

Sure.  No problem at all.  Just say that you'll send a patch by Friday,
rather than "please fix the documentation".  I wouldn't have said
anything if you hadn't asked someone else to adjust the documentation.
But in this case, even that wasn't necessary, since Bruno quickly
did just what you requested.

> an ever-increasing pile which just sits gathering dust".