Cc: Mark Lord <lkml@...>, Ilpo Järvinen <ilpo.jarvinen@...>, David Miller <davem@...>, <jesper.juhl@...>, <yoshfuji@...>, Jeff Garzik <jeff@...>, <rjw@...>, LKML <linux-kernel@...>, Netdev <netdev@...>
On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 02:25:36 +0400, Evgeniy Polyakov wrote:
c) wrote:
Did I really? Let's see ...
o
Looks like you're saying I was right after all. Useless bug reports
shouldn't be submitted.
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?
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.
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.
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.
That analogy is wrong on so many accounts. It is not my throat that's
aching. A doctor would not insult me for not wanting to open my mouth
but rather ask if there was perhaps a valid reason for that. Not to
mention that opening my mouth takes substantially less time than a Linux
kernel bisection ...
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.
HTH
T.
PS: I'll shut my big mouth now. The topic has been beaten to death.
