Bug#290916: important or grave?

[jdthood@aglu.demon.nl, 290916-quiet@bugs.debian.org]

> (P.S. Justification of ``renders package unusable'' was justified as
> for my network gdm was barely usable at that time.  The argument ``I have
> it here and it works fine'' is irrelevant within BTS IMHO.)


Hi.

The definitions of the severity levels are not precise and unfortunately
they aren't free from ambiguity.  "grave" is defined this way:

    makes the package in question unusable or mostly so, or causes
    data loss, or introduces a security hole allowing access to the
    accounts of users who use the package.

Now, this "unusable" could mean, at one extreme, "unusable for everyone
under all circumstances for all purposes" or, at the other extreme,
"unusable for someone under some circumstances for some purposes".

I think it should be interpreted in contrast with the definition of
"important":

    has a major effect on the usability of a package, without
    rendering it completely unusable to everyone.

That is, a bug is more than "important", (i.e., is "grave") if it
_does_ render the package completely unusable to everyone.

However, I can understand other people having other interpretations.

I would welcome it if these definitions were made more precise.

I think it is important to consider the perlocutionary force of these
severity assignments too.  Rating a bug as "grave" is rating it as 
release critical.  A package with a release critical bug can't be
released; thus if a package has an RC bug then either the release has
to be delayed until the bug is fixed or the package has to be omitted
from the release ... or we have to break our self-imposed rule.

If gdm works for no one it certainly isn't fit for release.  If it
works for only one person then it certainly isn't fit for release.
If it works for everyone but one person (and doesn't cause that person
serious data loss) then I would say that it is fit for release.

So we really need more information in order to decide whether or not
this bug is RC.  I apologize for any trouble I may have caused by
downgrading it.
-- 
Thomas