Subject: Re: bug#807: reportbug: should submit bug reports to Devuan & indicate distribution

From: Ansgar <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2023 20:59:11 +0100

Hi,

On Tue, 2023-11-28 at 15:34 +0000, Mark Hindley wrote:
> Thanks for this.
> 
> I think you may misunderstand what Devuan's reportbug does.
> 
> By default it reports to Devuan's BTS.
> 
> For unforked packages it asks the user which BTS to use (whilst still
> defaulting to Devuan). 

It should recommend users to file the bug report with Devuan if they
are not sure whether it is not a Devuan-specific bug or not. This is
recommended by Debian's derivative guidelines[1], though AFAIU Devuan
often does the opposite:

+---
| For distributions that modify core or non-leaf packages
| (especially libraries), it is recommended to redirect all bug
| reports to your distribution's tracker.
| [...]
| For distributions that modify configuration in ways that affect
| other packages, it is recommended to redirect all bug reports to
| your distribution's tracker.
+---

  [1]: https://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/Guidelines#Bug_reports

As Devuan introduces major differences like split-usr, it is
increasingly likely that a large class of issues will only happen on
Devuan, but not Debian.

> The reportbug System Information identifies the Distribution as
> Devuan.

It does not. From the bug report I referenced in the initial mail:

+---
| -- System Information:
| Debian Release: trixie/sid
|   APT prefers experimental
|   APT policy: (1, 'experimental')
| merged-usr: no
| Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
| Foreign Architectures: i386
+---

which does not say "Devuan" anywhere, except in the header "X-
Reportbug-Version: 12.0.0+devuan2" and some package versions which
include "devuan".

It might be a bug when the report is submitted to Debian's BTS instead
of Devuan's BTS. No idea.

Ansgar