Re: Changing PACKAGE_BUGREPORT?

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello Eric,

On Mon, Apr 03, 2006 at 07:25:29AM -0600, Eric Blake wrote:
> [...]  I am thinking that changing the reporting address to cygwin
> first would allow myself and other cygwin developers to filter out real
> upstream bugs from cygwin-specific issues, avoiding some of the confusion
> apparent in the mentioned bug-findutils thread.

I understand your point: in the Cygwin port the ratio of platform specific
reports is extra high.  But it is still a port, and the upstream maintainers
are often eager to hear about problems with the Cygwin port, some of them
might have a Cygwin port at their hand, etc.

Let me give an example: how would you feel if Fedora modifies the package
so that it tells the users to report to bugzilla.redhat.com?
Besides the usual excuse that we can filter out our platform specific
problems, we could also argue that bugzilla database is more sophisticated
system that unreliable SMTP mailing lists, handled by host which has poor
spam filtering, and thus gets often listed in black-lists?

Sure such a step of Fedora would induce negative feelings.

When we hand out Fedora, we tell people: ``if you experience any problem,
we'd be grateful if you tell us through the bugzilla.''  But then the man
pages and --help texts point to the upstreem bugzillas or bug mail lists.

I'm sure this is the right blend for Fedora.  And, IMHO, this is the right
blend for Cygwin, too.  Perhaps you could make the voice of the installer
stronger: I can imagine that a window pop's up on the first start of the
``Cygwin shell'' saying:

``Please add address@hidden to your address book.

Thank you for choosing Cygwin.  We hope you'll enjoy it; but since nothing is
perfect, you might encounter some problems: we'd like to hear about them in
that case.  Would you be so kind to insert out bgu report address to your
address book: it's address@hidden  Thanks.''

Have a nice day,
        Stepan