From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1031123AbXD1WMH (ORCPT ); Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:12:07 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1031116AbXD1WMG (ORCPT ); Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:12:06 -0400 Received: from cantor.suse.de ([195.135.220.2]:48819 "EHLO mx1.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030905AbXD1WMD (ORCPT ); Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:12:03 -0400 From: Neil Brown To: "Martin J. Bligh" Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 08:11:30 +1000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <17971.50834.907414.761549@notabene.brown> Cc: Linus Torvalds , Diego Calleja , Chuck Ebbert , Adrian Bunk , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Andrew Morton Subject: Re: Linux 2.6.21 In-Reply-To: message from Martin J. Bligh on Saturday April 28 References: <20070426040806.GJ3468@stusta.de> <20070426125802.GL3468@stusta.de> <4630DB24.4030005@redhat.com> <20070426201325.8a1ebda3.diegocg@gmail.com> <20070426224148.69b91b2e.diegocg@gmail.com> <46339BC7.6050802@mbligh.org> X-Mailer: VM 7.19 under Emacs 21.4.1 X-face: [Gw_3E*Gng}4rRrKRYotwlE?.2|**#s9D > Yes, human involvement from someone with half a brain would be better. > Andrew does a lot of that. Not a particularly good use of talent really. > but still. I think more than half a brain is needed to do this well. You need a reasonable understanding of how all the bits of the kernel work together so that you have a good chance of sending the bug in the right direction. You need a good understanding of the kernel community and various sub communities so that you know who might be both able and willing to deal with the bug. And it wouldn't hurt to have a good over-view of the current 'hot' areas of the kernel so you know if it is really worth suggesting "try with the latest -mm" or not. And you need good people skills. So I think you really need a lot of up-to-date knowledge to do this well. Because of Andrew's position as a funnel, he has a lot of that knowledge. It would be really nice if he had some help though. And I really think that would mean finding someone in the community who would rather be coding (and currently are) and convincing them that there is a higher calling for them. Finding someone out side or on the edge of the community is less likely to be effective. > > 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. NeilBrown