Re: Autoresponder for mail sent to bug-sh-utils, and other obsolete lists

[Philip Rowlands]

On Fri, 6 Apr 2007, James Youngman wrote:

> With help from Justin Baugh, I have now set up the 
> bug-obsolete-packages mailing list.  It functions as an autoresponder 
> for mail sent to bug-sh-utils, bug-textutils and bug-fileutils.  The 
> point of doing this is that anybody using those mailing list names is 
> almost certainly using very old versions of the software (probably 6+ 
> years old).  They should probably try to reproduce their problem with 
> a newer version of coreutils before mailing bug-coreutils about their 
> problem.

I think it's wise to discourage people simply re-posting their query to 
bug-coreutils, however the given text here is backwards IMHO.

> ---8<---
> Thanks for your mail about GNU software.  Unfortunately, you have sent
> email to an out-of-date mailing list name.   The mailing list has been
> renamed because the package itself has been renamed.

"software package itself" ?

> The fact that you are using an out-of-date list (and package) name
> implies that the software you have been using is now very out of date.
> If you are writing to report a bug, please take the time to download
> the updated version of the software.   It is likely that your problem
> has already been fixed in the updated version of the software.

 From memory of the list history, it's >= likely that the problem is 
answered in the FAQ. The problem with asking people to download a newer 
version, which I see a lot, is the expectation that they have the 
wherewithal to compile and run their own software. Perhaps a better 
suggestion in the first instance is to check for vendor updates, e.g. 
"It would be worth checking with the person or organisation which 
provided the software whether a newer version is available from them."

Users of the various long-term-support distros (RHEL, Ubuntu LTS) may 
not easily be able to drop in a replacement, particularly as that goes 
against the incremental fix-only approach these distros encourage.

> ... then you should download a copy of GNU coreutils, which replaced
> the three packages textutils, sh-utils and fileutils on 2002-09-01.
>
> GNU coreutils is available from ftp://ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/coreutils.

Unnecessary port separator?

I think the best place to direct people for self-help, in order, is:
- the FAQ
- search the mailing list archives, give direct URL
- check for vendor update
- address@hidden with "does it fail in the latest version" caveat


Cheers,
Phil