Bug report: Take bug reporting off the mailing list

[Norman Gray]

Barbara and all, hello.

On 9 Feb 2024, at 20:45, barbara beeton wrote:

> The TeX Live crew is good at sorting out possibilities from the
> sometimes muddled reports, but they're really overworked.  I often
> wonder how Karl manages to handle TeX Live, TUGboat production editor,
> and TUG treasurer all at the same time.  I shudder to think of his
> sleep schedule.

I don't think anyone was setting out to find more work for the TeXLive maintainers to do.  They're surely already rushed off their feet doing an important and largely thankless task (thankless because it's invisible, and invisible because they're very efficient).

There is an interesting question of the extent to which TeXLive and CTAN are atypical in style, compared to other open-source projects, and in particular how end-users are supported in reporting bugs.  Is TeXLive and the broader CTAN ecosystem in fact currently unconventional in its bug reporting?  And if so is there a useful way of making it less so, and indeed _decreasing_ the load on the maintainers?  That's a fine Friday-afternoon discussion.

Based on the various contributions to the thread, it sounds as if yes, there _might_ be some things one could plausibly do; I suspect, myself, they'd be less time-expensive than they might initially seem; but no, they're probably still too expensive, relative to the benefits to the community and to the maintainers that they might bring, to justify any change.  I'm not volunteering to effect change here (though it did cross my mind), so I'm certainly not going to try to persuade anyone else into extra work.

That doesn't mean that discussion is illegitimate, or (I'm sure) that there is any lack of appreciation of the quality and quantity of the important work the maintainers do.

What there possibly _is_ a lack of, is explicit thanks for the thankless task.  Like others on this list (I'm sure), I have practical awareness of the amount of effort it takes to keep an intricate system ticking along, so I for one do thank the maintainers for their substantial and ongoing donation of effort to this community.

I wish there were a way to make those thanks more tangible.  Hmm: subscription model...  Hmm: TUG membership...?  Aha.  A thought for next Friday afternoon, perhaps...

Best wishes,

Norman


-- 
Norman Gray  :  https://nxg.me.uk