debbugs.gnu.org: is it user-centric or developer-centric?

[Ivan Shmakov]

        Could someone please clarify on the proper usage of
        debbugs.gnu.org?  Specifically, per my prior experience with the
        Debian BTS, the issues which the developers do not consider
        worth fixing, but which are otherwise valid, are tagged
        ‘wontfix’, but /not/ closed.

        The rationale behind that is that the issues both remain visible
        to the /users/ of the package, /and/ are known to be “dealt
        with” (in a way) to the developers.

        Recently, two of my bug reports filed against Emacs (#17959 and
        #19109, specifically) were closed without the issues being
        actually fixed.  This makes them eligible for archiving, which
        will hide them from the (default) BTS view.

        Granted, Debian BTS was established to serve /both/ the
        developers /and/ the users of the package (or at least it’s my
        reading of the Debian Social Contract.)  I thus wonder if my
        experience is applicable to the Debbugs instance run by the GNU
        project; or if that instance is instead targeted primarily at
        developers, and thus merely sharing the knowledge of the
        existing issues (including those arising from some “singular
        usage pattern”, so to say) among the users is out of its scope?

        TIA.

>>>>> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden> writes:
>>>>> Ivan Shmakov <address@hidden> writes:
>>>>> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden> writes:

 >>> So I'm closing this.

 >> I have no objections to classifying this as ‘wontfix’, but I’d
 >> rather keep this opened for the issue to remain visible to the
 >> community.  (FWIW, http://debbugs.gnu.org/ hides closed issues by
 >> default.)

        I stand corrected: merely closing the bug doesn’t hide it from
        the public view.  However, it makes the bug eligible for
        archiving, and the archived bugs /do/ get hidden by default.

 > That's the point of closing bugs reports -- so that other maintainers
 > don't have to bother with them.

        Wouldn’t ‘wontfix’ be enough for that?

 > Closing again.

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