[Openvpn-devel] how to report bug

[Openvpn-devel] how to report bug

[Farkas Levente]

hi,
what is the current prefered way to report bug in openvpn?
trac? eg is there any chance to this will be fixed?
https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/ticket/225
regards.

-- 
  Levente                               "Si vis pacem para bellum!"

Re: [Openvpn-devel] how to report bug

[David Sommerseth]

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On 13/06/13 14:11, Farkas Levente wrote:
> hi,
> what is the current prefered way to report bug in openvpn?
> trac? eg is there any chance to this will be fixed?
> https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/ticket/225

Hi,

I'm now going to say something which might sound controversial, but I'm
actually trying to describe the reality more than the ideal way how this
normally should work.

We are quite few developers, and most of us do OpenVPN hacking in our
precious spare time.  That basically means that we have a very long
backlog of bugs to fix, and we prioritise more or less those itches
which hits us more directly.

To give you some numbers ... there is one person working fulltime on
development in OpenVPN Technologies and he got a full schedule with
development tasks related to their customers needs and demands.  The
rest of the community consists of roughly a handful developers, which
covers everything from the more general parts of OpenVPN to specialised
parts of it like IPv6, SSL/Crypto, plug-ins API, Windows port, Android port.

If there are so-called "low hanging fruits" with clear obvious solutions
which takes a short time to fix, they usually gets fixed rather soonish.
 Or security critical issues.

But if we can't be convinced it is a critical issue which needs
immediate action ... it will take time to get things fixed.  We usually
do give feedback to most patches and Trac tickets, so the best solution
then is to carefully consider the feedback ... and see if that feedback
can be implemented in a patch which can be contributed to the mailing
list (preferably) or attached to a Trac ticket.

If you, or anyone else, is interested in participating and helping out
... please, don't be shy! We need more manpower!  Show up in the
#openvpn-devel IRC channel on FreeNode, become more active the
openvpn-devel mailing (commenting on patches).  Raise your voice and let
us get to know you better.  If you have good feedback and comments and
your reasoning makes sense to the rest us, you will quickly gain more
responsibility in the community.

About 5 years ago, #openvpn-devel didn't exist at all.  Now there are
8-10 people in that channel right now who have gotten some of their
patches committed to the different OpenVPN git trees.  And 4-5 of these
are actively involved in discussing patches on a regular basis.

So if you have interest in OpenVPN development.  You can influence
OpenVPN by raising your voice and getting involved.  Gain trust among
the community members, and you will be entrusted with more responsibility.


-- 
kind regards,

David Sommerseth



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Re: [Openvpn-devel] how to report bug

[Gert Doering]

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Hi,

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 02:11:26PM +0200, Farkas Levente wrote:
> what is the current prefered way to report bug in openvpn?
> trac? eg is there any chance to this will be fixed?
> https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/ticket/225
> regards.

The best way to get it fixed is "send a patch".

The second best way is to do what you did - write a good bug report, and
ask us every now and then why nothing has happened.  As David has explained,
we're all a bit short on time, so a bug that isn't directly causing an itch
at one of the developers might get overlooked.

If you're impatient, the second best way to get it fixed *quickly* is 
"send money" (some of us work as freelancers, so paid-for work gets 
prioritized before spare-time work - family needs feeding...).

But yeah, we're working on cleaning up the patch queue...

gert

-- 
USENET is *not* the non-clickable part of WWW!
                                                           //www.muc.de/~gert/
Gert Doering - Munich, Germany                             gert@...1296...
fax: +49-89-35655025                        gert@...1297...

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Re: [Openvpn-devel] how to report bug

[Farkas Levente]

On 06/13/2013 03:06 PM, Gert Doering wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 02:11:26PM +0200, Farkas Levente wrote:
>> what is the current prefered way to report bug in openvpn? trac?
>> eg is there any chance to this will be fixed? 
>> https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/ticket/225 regards.
> 
> The best way to get it fixed is "send a patch".
> 
> The second best way is to do what you did - write a good bug
> report, and ask us every now and then why nothing has happened.  As
> David has explained, we're all a bit short on time, so a bug that
> isn't directly causing an itch at one of the developers might get
> overlooked.
> 
> If you're impatient, the second best way to get it fixed *quickly*
> is "send money" (some of us work as freelancers, so paid-for work
> gets prioritized before spare-time work - family needs
> feeding...).
> 
> But yeah, we're working on cleaning up the patch queue...

the given ticket even has patches included...

-- 
  Levente                               "Si vis pacem para bellum!"

Re: [Openvpn-devel] how to report bug

[Gert Doering]

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Hi,

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 03:41:27PM +0200, Farkas Levente wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 02:11:26PM +0200, Farkas Levente wrote:
> >> what is the current prefered way to report bug in openvpn? trac?
> >> eg is there any chance to this will be fixed? 
> >> https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/ticket/225 regards.
> > 
> > The best way to get it fixed is "send a patch".
[..]
> the given ticket even has patches included...

Indeed.  And yeah, we could certainly do better, like "having 5 extra 
people really understanding the code basis and agreeing on the intentions
where the project wants to go, and helping with all the open issues"...

For now, I think we're not doing *that* bad - 2.3 release had tons of 
features and only a few bugs, and we got them sorted out by 2.3.2 in
fairly short time :-) - but yeah, lots of room for improvement left.

gert
-- 
USENET is *not* the non-clickable part of WWW!
                                                           //www.muc.de/~gert/
Gert Doering - Munich, Germany                             gert@...1296...
fax: +49-89-35655025                        gert@...1297...

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