Re: Linux 2.6.21

Rafael J. Wysocki
2007-04-28T23:10:37Z

On Sunday, 29 April 2007 00:33, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 29, 2007 at 08:11:30AM +1000, Neil Brown wrote:
> > On Saturday April 28, mbligh@mbligh.org wrote:
> >...
> > > As Andrew has pointed out before though - even though he forwards
> > > the bugs, nobody does anything with it. The sad truth seems to be
> > > that people have very little interest in fixing bugs when they are
> > > reported - it's not sexy, I guess.
> >
> > Not sexy, and also not at all easy. A lot of the interesting bugs
> > seem to be subtle interactions between separate parts of the kernel -
> > one part making an assumption or exhibiting a behaviour that the other
> > part didn't expect. And we all know that writing bug^Wcode is easier
> > than removing bugs. I can spend hour and hours reading through code
> > trying to get the big picture, and end up finding a one-line change
> > that then needs documenting, testing and external review. It's not
> > easy.
> >
> > > I'm still unconvinced the users or the tool are the problem, but if it
> > > makes you happier, we can do that.
> >
> > No, they aren't the problem. Bugs are the problem. But they might be
> > a more effective part of the solution.
> >
> > My perception of the kernel bugzilla is that visibility is very low.
> >
> > I think there is value in weekly reminders, and I wouldn't mind seeing
> > a weekly Email on linux-kernel with something like a list of open bugs
> > that have not seen any activity in between 1 and 2 weeks. It might
> > get someone out-of-area interested, and might be noticed by someone
> > who thinks they are in-area and get them wondering why they didn't
> > find out when the bug was first reported.
>
> The 100 kB email limit has to be lifted for this...
>
> More seriously, there are > 1000 open bugs in the kernel Bugzilla
> without any activity during the last 2 weeks.
>
> The problem is usually either "Not sexy, and also not at all easy." or
> "no maintainer".

Please add "limited human resources" to this list.

Greetings,
Rafael