Bug report: Take bug reporting off the mailing list

[Colin Baxter]

>>>>> Eyal Rozenberg via tex-live <tex-live at tug.org> writes:

    > Hello TeXLive maintainers, I claim that having bug reports go
    > through the main / a main mailing list of the project's is, well,
    > a bug. Why?

    > 1. It conflates aspects of the project which some (many) would
    > like to consider separately. If there were different mechanisms to
    > conduct discussions, read announcements, and follow bugs - some
    > people would choose to utilize all of them, and some only part of
    > them

    > 2. It discourages people from following events relating to their
    > own bug. In order to follow it, you must accept all mails about
    > the project.  I don't know how frequent those are, but - new and
    > potential subscribers would generally not know, and as they begin
    > to receive messages not related to their bugs, are likely to
    > unsubscribe from the list, and miss posts related to them.

    > 3. It discourages people from filing bugs. This is more of a
    > psychological argument, but - joining a project's mailing list
    > implies significant interest in the project, somewhat of a
    > commitment to it - while all a user may want to do is be a "good
    > Samaritan" and report something. Some of us might just give it up
    > so as not to subscribe, report and unsubscribe - which feels like
    > a bit of an abuse of the mailing list mechanism.

    > So, I would ask that you consider using a different bug tracking
    > system.  There are many popular FOSS web-based systems that do not
    > require changes in other aspects of how your project is run, and
    > can also send out emails which might be able to replace mail-based
    > triggering you might currently be using.

    > This would also have the benefit of letting people pick-and-choose
    > which bugs they want to follow.

    > Respetfully, Eyal Rozenberg

Please do not use FOSS web-based systems - they are not popular with
everyone. Many people, including myself, read this newsgroup using emacs
gnus and it works perfectly.

Best wishes,

Colin Baxter.