Re: Subscribe maintainers list to the bug/patch tracker [was "Patch to make common octave_dock_widget class"]

[Carnë Draug]

On 7 February 2013 19:30, c. <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 7 Feb 2013, at 19:40, Carnë Draug <address@hidden> wrote:
>> On 7 February 2013 13:56, c. <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> The trackers seem like a very good place to store contributions but not as 
>>> good for carrying on the discussion about them.
>>
>> Why is it not a good place to carry a discussion about a bug? It's
>> very self contained, no one can change the subject line and get the
>> discussion split into multiple threads, keeps an history, and anyone
>> not on the mailing list can easily be added to the notifications. It's
>> the perfect place to carry the discussion about a specific bug. It was
>> designed for that purpose.
>
> All true, but I somehow get the feeling that, in practice, patches posted on 
> the tracker
> only get the attention they deserve when the contributor also announces them 
> on the mailing list.
>
> [...]
>
> which was not announced on the list AFAIK and has been waiting in vain in the 
> tracker even though
> it solves an issue that has been brought up already a few times on the list 
> in the past.
>
>> [..] Instead, developers should be motivated to subscribe to the
>> trackers, [...]

Yes, but that's because there's people on the mailing list that will
comment and work on the bug/patch that are not subscribed on the
trackers. That's why I suggested that the solution should be to
encourage those developers to subscribed to the trackers.

The current method of opening a report on the trackers and then coming
to the mailing list announcing it annoys me a tiny bit. It's a call of
attention, as if the person thinks his reports are more important the
others by bringing it to a larger audience. If everyone starts doing
it, then all reports get the same attention again so none will get the
"advantage" (it feels like they are on race and it shouldn't). The
solution should not to bring them all to the mailing list but to force
them to stay on the tracker. I already get a notification when there's
something new on the trackers, I don't need a duplicate.

The correct way to bring attention to a bug if no one acts on it for a
long time, should be leaving a ping on the report.

There's a maintainers mailing list for discussion of development, and
there's a bug tracker for discussion of bugs. Of course, sometimes the
discussion of one thing overlaps the other in which case makes sense
to bring it to the mailing list. But often it does not and so should
not be merged.

Carnë