[Reportbug-maint] Bug#551983: reportbug: local mta only a partial workaround

[supaplex]

Package: reportbug
Version: 3.48
Followup-For: Bug #551983

If the mua were a sure fire replacement, some settings from
reportbugrc would be redundant.  Eg, with email, smtphost, 
smtpuser, I can file a report from a machine that has local 
delivery only.

It is apparent that reportbug should not take the place of
an mua.  However, reportbug was developend to streamline
the bug reportting process.  Without a way to resume where
an old report left off, you may have to start over.  I vaguely
recall a few times where I was too frustrated to care any more
about a specific bug report.  Some of these were eventually
reportted by others, but the lead time could be weeks to
months. 

I can forsee this will take some planning to work these related
wishlist bugs into the program and workflow.  What if a resumed
report needs to review existing bugs again?  What if the package
is not installed locally?  Short answer?  Provide the user an
opportunity to verify if they should be rechecked, but if at all
possible, do not annoy the user by redundancy or waste of time.
The old report has some information, and may be used to give
hints where the report was aimed at to begin with.

All in all, the --resume wishlist bug is another way to show
reportbug is not very resiliant at recovering from previous faillure.
Reportting from another host isn't too unusual considering the
scale of some private networks and access control.  Local policy may
be too prohibitive to warrant altering the mta to suit picking up
this shortcoming.

Last but not least, I would like to say thank you for allowing
your end users to provide feedback on ways the software can
be improved.  So long as this process is not overly complicated,
I am more willing to share my viewpoint.
-- Package-specific info:
** Environment settings:
EDITOR="vim"

** /home/supaplex/.reportbugrc:
email debian at foss.daxal.com
smtphost daxal.com
smtpuser myob at example.com

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0.3
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-6-vserver-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages reportbug depends on:
ii  apt                      0.7.20.2+lenny1 Advanced front-end for dpkg
ii  python                   2.5.2-3         An interactive high-level object-o
ii  python-central           0.6.8           register and build utility for Pyt

reportbug recommends no packages.

Versions of packages reportbug suggests:
pn  debconf-utils             <none>         (no description available)
pn  debsums                   <none>         (no description available)
pn  dlocate                   <none>         (no description available)
ii  exim4                     4.69-9         metapackage to ease Exim MTA (v4) 
ii  exim4-daemon-light [mail- 4.69-9         lightweight Exim MTA (v4) daemon
ii  file                      4.26-1         Determines file type using "magic"
ii  gnupg                     1.4.9-3+lenny1 GNU privacy guard - a free PGP rep
pn  python-urwid              <none>         (no description available)

-- no debconf information