Bug report: Take bug reporting off the mailing list

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2024-02-08 at 22:05:29 +0200, Eyal Rozenberg via tex-live wrote:

 >
 > On 08/02/2024 16:13, Norbert Preining wrote:
 > >> I claim that having bug reports go through the main / a main mailing
 > >> list of the project's is, well, a bug. Why?
 > >
 > > Disagree.
 >  >
 >  > ...>
 > > That brings me back to WHY the mailing is 100times better than a bug
 > > reporting system:
 > > A dedicate bug reporting system will be flodded with bugs we will
 > > close without even looking at them for more than 5 seconds,
 > > because they fall into the above categories -- nothing we as TeX
 > > Live team can fix.
 > >
 > > On the other hand, posting bug reports here will often generate
 > > response from other list readers that help with user failures, or
 > > upstream bugs.
 >
 > Ah, but this can be readily achieved with a separate bug reporting
 > system! Anyone who may want to offer such assistance can simply
 > subscribe to a feed of all the reports of new bugs. And given a new
 > bug - they can decide whether they want to just ignore it, reply
 > via the bug tracking system only, or bring a bug up for public
 > discussion.

This is much worse than what we have now.  What we definitely don't
need are additional communication channels.  As Norbert pointed out
already most bugs reported here are not related to TeX Live at all.

Norbert mentioned bugs in LaTeX packages which cannot be fixed in TeX
Live.  But there are also many people who assume that there is a bug
in TeX Live though they upgrade from an out-of-date mirror.  In all
those cases (even if a real bug in TL is reported) this mailing list
is the best choice because there are many people on the list who
support others.  And you've seen how fast the bug you reported was
fixed.

 > Actually, Karl just mentioned the web-based system [...]

Karl also said that you don't have to be subscribed in order to file a
bug report here.  This should be sufficient for those who want to
report a bug.

You said:

 > Anyone who may want to offer such assistance can simply subscribe
 > to a feed of all the reports of new bugs.

Everybody on this list want to offer such assistance.  Forcing them to
subscribe to a feed in order to be able to do exactly what they've
done for decades is neither reasonable nor feasible.

The most important point is this: TeX Live is maintained by a small
group of volunteers.  They don't get money for what they are doing.
Especially Karl and Norbert spend all their spare time on TeX Live and
thus they are the only ones who have the right to decide which tools
they use in order to be able to work efficiently, regardless of what
you or anybody else suggest.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
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