bug handling policy / interaction with users

[Andras Mantia]

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On 2003. March 15., Saturday 21:48, Piotr Szymanski wrote:
> Scott Wheeler (Saturday 15 of March 2003 20:03)
>
> > http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48620
>
> And that is pretty much why I have been using noatun for years and never
> made any report.
> This user has a point, but I have learned while working around linux in
> .pl, that if you want a feature you should either code it yourself or shut
> up and act like everything is ok, this is how stuff works in free software,
> the faster the user learns it, the better, sad but true.

In some cases you may be right, but I hope that there are free software
developers out there that do care about bugreports AND feature requests, and
don't throw away the feedback with a simple "implement yourself" answer. Of
course the developers have their own plans and schedules, but not listening
to the people who are actually use their work is pretty dump. I'm both an
user and a developer, and as the first one, I sometimes get angry when I see
that my reports are ignored (but thankfully, if I have enough time in the
majority cases I'm able to fix the most annoying bugs myself), and I'm happy
when I get feedback, comments on my reports. As a developer I try to not make
the users angry on me. :-) Of course this isn't always possible, and
sometimes I forgot to answer, sometimes I answer in two words (mostly when I
have to answer the same question again and again - but in this cases it's a
sign that there is some real problem in my work).

My conclusion is: try to be kind with the people, and answer the reports, even
with a "Sorry, but this is not on my current todo list. If you are able, feel
free to fix/implement it, or wait until a(nother) developer picks up this
task."

Andras

PS: Even if some may say that I think this way because I'm payed to work on 
free software, I would like to let you know, that I had the same thoughts 
even before this. Of course during those times, I hadn't so much free time, 
and the answering mails, implementing new things and bugfixing took more 
time.

- --
Quanta Plus developer - http://quanta.sourceforge.net
K Desktop Environment - http://www.kde.org
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