Re: [bug #37411] Diagonal matrix attribution error and diag function bugs

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

Re: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?37411

I am moving this discussion to the maintainer's list, since I think it
could be of general interest, especially regarding the future of
Octave. I am only selectivly quoting shoernig's reply, which I hope is
ok.

On 21 September 2012 10:29, shoernig <address@hidden> wrote:
> I spent the time and effort to report that something was wrong with
> Octave,

There's nothing wrong with reporting bugs. Thank you for that. I am
sincere. However, I don't think there is anything wrong requesting
money to fix them either, especially if the bug matters to you.

Moreover, how much time did you spend on this bug? Over six hours? And
it was very difficult to diagnose? And you had to try many different
things before you could find the source of trouble? Were you
frustrated, angry, disappointed, and overall unhappy about having to
diagnose and report this bug? Was your effort comparable to mine?
Perhaps all of these questions can be answered with "yes", I do not
know. If I am being incosiderate, please let me know. They are all
"yes" for me.

> I don't understand the request for money.

Money is typically exchanged for good or services. In this case, a
service. There are other economies not based on money, such as a
barter economy, which I also offered: you provide your own bugfix
instead of me. I am willing to consider other things to barter, for
example, some nice music you may have that you think I could enjoy.
Since you are probably from a culture different than mine, I think I
would enjoy the novelty of whatever music you could have.

Also note that I'm willing to accept any monetary amount. It's mostly
a symbolic request. Hell, even if you email me a postcard, that would
be enough. A minor compensation to offset the trials and tribulations
I went through while fixing this bug.

Note that bug reporting is not as valuable to me, since it's not a bug
that affects me, and I don't think it's valuable to most other people,
since most other people will not be affected by this bug. This alone
is not a sufficient payment for me in this proposed barter economy.

> which you confirmed. Now I'm being told that by doing so I have
> wasted your time -- I have no influence over that.

I said the bug was minor and not very interesting. Someone else said
it was important. It wasn't you. If that other person considers the
bug important, perhaps they will care enough to pay for it. If you
don't care about this bug, then you won't care about it being fixed
either, so there is no further action you should take.

> Next time I find a bug I tell my colleagues to stop using Octave,
> instead of wasting everybody's time, seemingly.

My goal on working for Octave is to make stop people using Matlab. If
you're also able to convince your colleagues to not use Matlab in
addition to not using Octave, I will be happy. There are much better
alternatives out there. Please consider this post along with the
others in this blog:

    http://abandonmatlab.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/hello-world/

- Jordi G. H.