[Reportbug-maint] Bug#673534: reportbug: supplying an e-mail address should be optional, not required

[anonymous coward]

Package: reportbug
Version: 4.12.6
Severity: wishlist


It's foolish to require a bug submitter to supply an email address.
One who submits a bug report may or may not be interested in tracking
the bug via email.  And submitters may (quite rightly) be concerned
about disclosure of their email address.

An attempt at circumventing the problem is to use a bogus address like
"no at reply.net".  However, the malconfigured mail server responds
inappropriately:

  May 19 05:32:49 local postfix/smtp[22384]: certificate verification
  failed for bugs-master.debian.org[140.211.15.34]:25: untrusted
  issuer /C=NA/ST=NA/L=Ankh Morpork/O=Debian SMTP/OU=Debian SMTP
  CA/CN=Debian SMTP CA/emailAddress=hostmaster at puppet.debian.org

and after further attempts the reply becomes:

  May 19 11:32:42 local postfix/smtp[2278]: C11812005FD:
  to=<submit at bugs.debian.org>,
  relay=bugs-master.debian.org[140.211.15.34]:25, delay=7328,
  delays=7307/0.33/21/0, dsn=4.0.0, status=deferred (host
  bugs-master.debian.org[140.211.15.34] refused to talk to me: 421
  busoni.debian.org: Too much load; please try again later)

An ugly circumvention that works is to supply a genuine email address
that leads back to a server that blackholes the replies.  This is a
poor option to be left with though, because someone else following the
bug might attempt to compose a private message to the submitter.  Such
a message would be blackholed, and both the sender and recipient are
unaware.

The reportbug package may not have control over the malconfigured mail
server, but it need not force entry of an email address.  An email
address could be internally designated for the purpose of getting
reports through the mail server.  In any case, users should not be
required to give an email address to the reportbug client.

-- Package-specific info:
** Environment settings:
EDITOR="emacs"
INTERFACE="text"

** $HOME/.reportbugrc:
reportbug_version "4.12.6"
mode novice
ui text
realname "anonymous coward"
email "marc.carter-ceqosy2 at cool.fr.nf"

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0.5
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages reportbug depends on:
ii  apt                    0.8.10.3+squeeze1 Advanced front-end for dpkg
ii  python                 2.6.6-3+squeeze7  interactive high-level object-orie
ii  python-reportbug       4.12.6            Python modules for interacting wit

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  emacs23-bin-common   23.2+1-7            The GNU Emacs editor's shared, arc
ii  file                 5.04-5+squeeze2     Determines file type using "magic"
ii  gnupg                1.4.10-4            GNU privacy guard - a free PGP rep
ii  postfix [mail-transp 2.7.1-1+squeeze1    High-performance mail transport ag
ii  python-gtk2          2.17.0-4            Python bindings for the GTK+ widge
pn  python-gtkspell      <none>              (no description available)
pn  python-urwid         <none>              (no description available)
ii  python-vte           1:0.24.3-3          Python bindings for the VTE widget
ii  xdg-utils            1.0.2+cvs20100307-2 desktop integration utilities from

-- no debconf information