Bug#292421: Closing bugs filed against jed

[Rafael Laboissiere]

* G. Milde <g.milde at quantentunnel.de> [2007-01-17 10:20]:

> On 16.01.07, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
> > * G. Milde <g.milde at web.de> [2007-01-16 14:29]:
> 
> > > > #292421: jed: Emacs key C-h b is not included in C-h listing (describe-keys)
> > > >   We should tag this bug upstream and forward it to the upstream authors.
> > > 
> > > If I read the request right, the reporter asks for an additional
> > > keybinding in the emacs emulation. We could recommend customizing
> > > keybindings in ~/.jed/jed.rc and also forward the idea to J. E. D..
> 
> > You could also add a dpatch (attached below).  What to you think?
> 
> You could consider this if an upstream patch is rejected. Otherwise I would
> not bother with maintaining a dpatch for such a simple change.
> 
> Actually, I would like to confine the patches to "necessary" cases, i.e.
> 
> * modifications due to Debian specifics
> 
> * severe bugs that need urgent repair
> 
> * enhancements that are agreed on by Debian users/packagers but rejected
>   upstream (after careful consideration) it they require changes to the
>   system files.
>   
> Patches are a lot of work: you need to maintain them as outdated patches
> are a cumbersome as outdated documentation.

This is going quite philosophical, but is a important discussion, anyway.  I
agree with all your points above and I know from maintaining other packages
that patches may be quite hassling.  However, Debian has a Social Contract
stating that one of our priorities is our users (the other is free
software).  Therefore, when a user files a bug report, we must react to it.
We may decide that the bug report is not worth the introduction of a patch
to the upstream sources, in which case we tag the bug "wontfix" or we close
it.  However, I prefer to close the bug by the introduction of the patch,
even if it adds a burden to the package maintenance.

Just for the record, all the bugs currently open against the jed source
package are upstream-related.

-- 
Rafael