[Libreoffice-qa] Fwd: Re: Closing NEEDINFO bugs

[Alex Thurgood]

On 19/08/2012 19:20, Florian Reisinger wrote:
> __


> Now, most of them have not answered --> Closed....
> If they answer --> Reopen + check

If you look more closely, quite a few of these (I have no stats to back 
me up) were reports that Bjoern had reset in November to NEEDINFO when 
he did his first clean-up off the cuff, by resetting declared bugs to 
the NEEDINFO status. Since many of the OPs at the time were unaware what 
that meant, it is hardly surprising, IMO, that they then remained 
untreated/unresponded for so long. I, for one, fell foul of this 
"sleight of hand", and forgot the many issues that I had opened (under a 
different e-mail address at the time), that Florian so broad-handedly 
then disqualified.

My own personal take on this is that if you guys want to regularly 
schmeiss out bug reports that someone else has happened to sweepingly 
set as NEEDINFO, then I'm wasting my time here in QA. In my opinion, you 
have thrown the baby out with the bath water, but hey, just carry on 
like that and the world will be well. I know, I'll think I'll just wait 
3 months and set a load of bugs to NEEDINFO, and then 3 months later 
strike them all out as INVALID - sounds fair ? No, didn't think so.

The reasoning that says "the stats go to show...", sorry, I don't buy 
it, it doesn't take into account the negative impact that the first bug 
clean sweep had on the OPs, and certainly not the second one. If I were 
an OP and saw what happened, I'd likely have one of the following 
reactions :

(a) ignore the disappointing approach from QA and leave LO to the hell 
it is getting itself into ;

(b) vociferously tell the LO project to p*ss off (we've had at least two 
or three of those already)

(c) maybe, just maybe, grit my teeth and reset the issue to re-opened, 
IF, and only IF, I give a damn.

The statistics you invoke as justification only take account of option 
(c), which is a false assumption of social behaviour.


Sorry for what appears to be a rant, but this whole sordid affair has 
left me with a very bitter taste in my mouth, it was bad enough the 
first time around, and now this comes as the icing on the cake. Well, if 
that's how the project wants to play, so be it, but I'm a hair's breadth 
away from walking away from it. What has been played out here is clearly 
an attempt to alleviate a perceived lack of control of increasing bug 
count within the project. It might not have been planned that way, but 
that is how it looks to the outside and casual bug reporter. And then we 
have the gall to say that we need more people for QA - come on, who are 
we kidding if we act like that ?


My motivation for staying is directly linked to the usage I have on a 
professional level of the software with regard to databases. If mine, 
and others, bug reports can be swept under the carpet and then be told 
that all we have to do is reactivate them if we're not happy, well, I'd 
  be inclined to tell you all to take a running jump too. If I want 
hassle, I can go outside and pick a fight at the local pub, or for a 
quieter life, I can switch to competing software not a million miles away.

We are paying the ransom of our own success, and that ransom should 
avoid alienating those who made our software popular, the casual user 
with a problem.


OK, I've said enough.

Alex