Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:06:05 +0300 (EEST) | From | "Ilpo Järvinen" <> | Subject | Re: 2.6.25-rc8: FTP transfer errors |
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On Sat, 12 Apr 2008, Tilman Schmidt wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 02:25:36 +0400, Evgeniy Polyakov wrote: > > On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 12:16:28AM +0200, Tilman Schmidt (tilman@imap.cc) wrote: > >> So I was right after all? Bug reports from people who (for whatever > >> reason, including having to earn their living) cannot do a bisect are > >> not welcome? > > > > You got it wrong. > > Did I really? Let's see ... > > > If bug is subtle and developers can not reproduce it, there are only two > > ways out of the problem: to help developers or not to help. > > > > In the latter case bug report is useless (except that to show that it > > exists, since practically no one can fix it until some new details > > added). > > Looks like you're saying I was right after all. Useless bug reports > shouldn't be submitted.
...No, useless bug reports don't lead to a solution, ie., that particular bug won't get fixed as a result of the report! That's what these people are trying to say. Sure the point of bug reports is to get the bugs fixed, don't you think? :-/ ...Or do you thing it's only secondary to get them fixed.
> So please answer this simple question: If I know beforehand that I won't > have the time to do a bisect (or other similarly time-consuming task the > maintainers might ask from me), should I report the bug, or should I > keep my knowledge to myself? > > > > Bisection was just an example of the help, reporter can provide. > > Sure. It's not about bisection specifically, but about the time a > reporter is able to invest in addition to what went into the report > already. But bisection is is a good example, because it's the most > time-consuming of all the tasks routinely asked from bug reporters.
I'm asking the same thing from you as I did from Mark (it still remains unanswered)... What's your suggestion, how should we have solved this particular case? Do you join those that ask for developers to "invest" time to repeatedly go through the commits that are not guilty? ...One would never find the solution by that method :-/.
Yes, I'm fine that you don't want to help (or would want but cannot help like have been with many of nearly impossible to reproduce bugs with TCP lately) but the sole consequence is that the bug remains unsolved, it's plain simple. That's until somebody else is affected and reports and we get the necessary information. Or alternatively somebody just reads the offending code (possibly much later) and begins to wonder why there's this particular thing missing there (this is in fact not related to the bug reports at all, many bugs are found this way but it's not a thing one can force to happen in a timely manner :-)).
> > If you can not proceed with what was suggested, then do > > not piss anyone off because you were told to do something to help. > > If a polite "sorry, I don't have the time" already counts as pissing > off, the only choice left is to avoid the situation in which I'd have to > say that. IOW, don't report bugs if I don't have the time to follow > through. Again: if that is what you want, I have no problem with it.
Please reread the thread, this couldn't be farther from the truth...
...Dave had suggested Mark would have to bisect, I suppose this was after founding out that there wasn't anything particular that should cause this kind of behavior, or at least he couldn't find anything even suspicious looking. Mark, with rather demanding tone, was _also_ asking for that "somebody" who did all those TCP fin/closing changes (that would be me) to be responsible over them, ie., those parts that Dave had checked and found not suspicious (and bisect also proved them innocent later on). Yes, I then went through that "mountain of commits" which Mark "was not willing to do" himself. I invested the time even after Dave had also come to the same conclusion as I again did, that there is nothing wrong with the particular parts of the TCP. Funny, since it seems that even Mark himself had come to that same conclusion as both Dave and myself then came (though I cannot really speak for him). So I was third one to check those parts which were then found not guilty, would I be angry about it, I would call that plain waste of time :-). Please note too that I would have gone through them without his remarks as well to just check the thing I already knew.
So what's the problem with that. The thing that Mark wasn't very willing to go through that "mountain of commits" and made some accusions that one shouldn't ask user to do that, yet he was doing the same thing, asking for me to go through that "mountain of commits". I don't find that as polite as you do (and maybe you don't honestly either), especially as that was _already done by Dave_, yet it wasn't enough for him.
[...doctor part snipped...]
> A better analogy would be if I see an object lying on the highway, and I > stop at the next service area to call the police and alert them about > the possible danger. If they'd ask me to drive back to the place where I > saw it in order to describe precisely where it lay and what it looked > like, I think I might indeed become a bit upset.
But you would feel qualified to tell how the police/doctor must handle it? ...That was the main problem.
To conclude I moved this your case down here...
> This question is not theoretical. It's a situation I find myself in > quite regularly, because I allow myself the luxury of building most rc > kernels and even the odd mm kernel just for fun even though I have a > daytime job and a family to feed. It would be quite easy to look the > other way if I encounter a problem in one of those, hoping someone else > with more time on his or her hands will also come across it and report > it. So far my conscience told me not to do that. But if reporting it > without being able to follow up on it is considered useless then my > conscience was apparently wrong. Just say the word, and I'll stop what > I'm doing. I'll have no problem finding other things to do with my time.
It's perfectly fine that you report bugs, even with little time :-). But then if you are asked to do something that is necessary to help developers and you are not willing to do that, please don't start adding demands (it might actually be quite hard to restrain oneself from adding hidden "attacks" to wording, at least for me). Also we have to then accept the concequences, ie., the bug won't get fixed because of that report (unless something comes up later which connects the pieces).
> PS: I'll shut my big mouth now. The topic has been beaten to death.
I thought the same earlier, but I want to try to correct the misunderstand you are tryng really hard to get here :-).
-- i.
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