Re: Futile bug reports?

[Peter S Galbraith]

Kai Gro johann wrote:

> I wonder if it makes sense to use something like the Debian people
> use?  They have an email interface to their system, so the existing
> M-x report-emacs-bug RET machinery could be kept up.
> 
> I _think_ the package maintainers also use email to deal with the
> reports, though I'm not sure about this.  I'm not a Debian package
> maintainer.  But maybe such a person is reading this and can advise?

Our BTS (Bug Tracking System) uses email to submit bug reports,
but they are thereafter viewable via a web interface.

Users submit a bug by email to submit@bugs.debian.org with
"Package", "Version" and "Severity" tags, like so:

 To: Debian GNU/Linux bug tracking system <submit@bugs.debian.org>
 Subject: emacs20; doesn't install properly
 --text follows this line--

 Package: emacs20
 Version: 20.7-3
 Severity: normal
 
  blah blah blah...

There are a few front ends to fill in the info for users (I maintain
debian-bug.el for example).  When the message is sent, the BTS
replies with an assigned  bug number.  

Users and maintainers can submit more info on the bug by sending
email to that bug number, e.g. for bug #100000, to
100000@bugs.debian.org.

Users can view the bug report at http://bugs.debian.org/100000
or by package name, maintainer name or submitter name:

     http://bugs.debian.org/packagename
     http://bugs.debian.org/maintainer@email.address 
     http://bugs.debian.org/from:submitter@email.address 

Developers can close the bug by email 100000-done@bugs.debian.org
or by sending commands to control@bugs.debian.org (or via a
Closes: statement in the package Changelog of a new uploaded package).

See http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ for links for relevant usage info
for all these interfaces.

It works _quite_ well.

Peter