Bug#292191: upgrade changes ownerhsip of /var/spool/exim4

[( Marc A. Lehmann )]

On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 11:14:50PM +0100, Andreas Barth <aba@not.so.argh.org> wrote:
> On the one side, Marc (Lehmann), you're definitly right that this is a
> bug. I personal even agree that this is a bug that should be fixed
> before release of sarge. I can also understand that this bug caused you
> extra work, and none of us is happy to do extra work. However, on the
> other hand, it is _vital_ for release management that only the bugs are
> marked with release critical priorities that _have_ to be fixed before
> release of sarge - otherwise, it makes our release management harder
> than it already is.
> 
> Please accept that as basis of the bug severities in Debian. They are a
> management tool for us.

That is fine, although I believe this will always lead to confusion until the
wording reportbug uses is being fixed then. If it's just the magic property
one could have used "important" instead.

In fact, I don't care about the actual severity of the bug. What I certainly
dislike if:

a) the bug report is immediately being dismissed as "not losing data"
b) I am being told that I haven't lost data when I did
c) a data loss is not a data loss if it could have been avoided.

I see no point in reporting such bugs if they are treated like that.

To make things clear, I am not angry or so, this is just my reasoning I have
when confronted with such a reaction.

In fact, the extra work was not much of a problem - I encountered the problem
numerous times before and didn't report it because I wasn't sure wether it
really is an issue. This time, however, somebody else did the upgrade, and I
honestly thought it would be a really good idea to report this, otherwise it
won't be fixed.

> > knowledgable monitoring might cause the priblem not to be severe this does
> > not, as you seem to assume, make the bug less problematic :(
> 
> In fact, it has always been Debians strategy that upgrade bugs can only
> be release critical when they happen on upgrades from the last stable
> release (in this case woody) to the current version.

After reading my original bug report, I don't see any reason (wording etc.)
for the response I got - except for tagging the report as critical.

I was not aware that tagging it as such would result in a release problem. I
did follow the instructions that reportbug gave me, thought about wether the
data loss was non-serious (e.g. retry happens) or serious (non-recoverable),
and decided that this can easily result in such data loss.

I also don't have a problem with tagging the report with any other
severity _at all_. I did have a problem with tagging it as normal and
basically telling me that it's my problem ("you've surely not...") and
that I am mis-reporting things ("there is no data loss").

> unhappy with such a bug, but just that for managing the release, this
> bug cannot be release critical, and can at maximum be important (please
> see above, severities are _the_ important tool to manage release of
> sarge).

I won't dispute the severity at all. I do dispute the way the bug is being
reacted to.

> I hope that this bug is fixed soon (and it seems to me that Marc (Haber)
> is already working on a solution); so perhaps it's possible to just
> accept your differences in the severity of the bug, and work together
> for a solution.

I am sorry if I miscommunicated that. I don't have a problem with the
severity at all. Just that the facts I reported are bluntly being regarded as
wrong, based on wrong assumptions.

If the response would have been "this is not critical enough because of
xxx" or so, it would be fine. But telling me that I didn't lose mail is
just - sorry - dumb, as I was not writing the report to generate work, or
becasue I was pissed off by having some extra work, but because it's just
plain _wrong_.

Again, I am not angry at all, and I don't depend on a quick fix, or a fix
in sarge, at all. I just got the distinct feeling that this bug is being
disregarded because I was repeatedly told that it's just a mistake on my
side.

-- 
                The choice of a
      -----==-     _GNU_
      ----==-- _       generation     Marc Lehmann
      ---==---(_)__  __ ____  __      pcg@goof.com
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      -=====/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\      XX11-RIPE