Bug#153564: libpt's PlayFile does not work properly under powerpc

[Santiago Vila]

On Sun, 2 Dec 2007, Faidon Liambotis wrote:

> Can we keep this discussion on the facts?

Hmm, why? Your opinion is that it was ok to close this bug, my opinion
is that it was not, and we are apparently trying to convince at each other.
I don't see that as a bad thing by itself.

If we only look at the facts we would do this:

The bug is not proved fixed -> The bug remains open.

A fact would be "the bug is fixed". Instead of that, you speak about
"the probability that the bug is fixed by itself over time", so I'm
afraid a little bit of opinion and judgement call seems unavoidable in
this discussion.

> - When we close bugs, we almost *never* know if it is actually fixed in
>   a release. We make a judgement  that may be wrong. That's why "reopen"
>   exists in the first place.

I disagree with such line of reasoning. When I close a bug, I almost always
check that the bug is fixed in the release which fixes the bug. If you do
things differently I would call it a "bad practice". I believe our standards
of quality for dealing with bugs should be higher.

> - There have been 48 releases of pwlib since the bug was initially
>   reported. The possibility that this bug was fixed in one of these was
>   quite high.

I disagree here as well. If a bug is reported and nobody looks at it,
the probability that it remains unfixed after several releases is still high,
precisely because nobody looked at the bug report.

> - The usual way to close such a bug is for the submitter(s) to test if
>   it is fixed or not. You were asked for an update and didn't respond
>   for 2 and a half years.

I also disagree here. The submitter (me) already did his part by
submitting a bug report. You can ask him for help to check whether the
bug is fixed or not, and I fully agree that it's the logical thing to
do if the bug only reproduces in an architecture which only the
submitter has, but your unability to check that for yourself (because
of not having a powerpc machine available) should not be an excuse to
close the bug.

In this particular case, I had a powerpc semi-available which allowed me
to report the bug (the machine was used by a fellow person at work), but
later the machine became unavailable, which made impossible for me to
check anything at all. At this point of time, then, submitter and maintainer
were at the same level as far as "reproductibility" is concerned, which means
things like "you should be able to check that this bug is still present for us
to do anything about it" would not be acceptable. Just because the
maintainer does not have a powerpc machine does not mean the bug ceases
to exist, or that it does not deserve to be fixed.

> On the bug itself, it'd be nice if you provided more info, since you
> have the technical skills for that (being a DD etc.)

The test in my previous message were done on etch systems, which means
ohphone version 1:1.4.5+20060204-2 and libpt-1.10.0 version 1.10.2-2.

The powerpc machine is a Mac Mini. I don't plan to upgrade to lenny
right now, sorry, but I suggest that you send a mail message to
debian-powerpc if you need to reach people having a powerpc machine
running Debian.