[Reportbug-maint] Bug#763178: bugs.debian.org: Confusing use of "pending" for status and tag, was: Bug#763178: reportbug: erroneously shows status pending for other bugs

[jre]

control: reassign -1 bugs.debian.org
control: severity -1 minor
control: retitle -1
control: reopen -1


Dear bugs.debian.org maintainers,


On 10/29/2014 02:02 PM, Sandro Tosi wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 1:49 PM, jre <jre.winesim at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I filed a bug against wine-development with reportbug. This shows me the
>> list of current bugs against wine-development. Every bug in this list
>> has either the status "done" or "pending". The latter is wrong or at
>> least confusing since it can be misunderstood as tagged "pending", which
>> none of those actually is. (Some of them are tagged "patch", and others
>> are completely untagged and have only the submitters mail).
>>
>> So I don't know what the reason is to show these bugs as "pending".
>> Maybe they should just be shown as "open" unless they get tagged "pending".
> 
> there is a bit of misunderstanding here, mixing up tags and statuses.
> when a bug is in status 'pending' it means it still misses a
> resolution (it is pending a resolution), while when a bug is tagged
> 'pending' it means a fix has been found and it's soon to be released.
> 
> This information are returned from the BTS to reportbug, which just
> shows them, so if you want clarification, i think you'd better contact
> owner at bugs.debian.org (the owner of the BTS).


I think the use of "Status: pending" is confusing given the widespread
use of "Tag: pending". To avoid this I'd suggest to use "Status: open"
instead.

I don't know the inner workings of the bts, I just stumbled upon this
when using reportbug and was pointed here then.

I assume the use of "Outstanding bugs ..." on the websites
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?package=... and
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=... is also based on
"Status: pending". This unambiguous presentation is exactly what I'd
hope to see in reportbug, too.

So personally I don't know where the best place is to fix this. Of
course, changing internal stuff of b.d.o might break other stuff.


Thanks everybody for your work, much appreciated
jre