Re: Proposed module, releasedate

[Bruno Haible]

James Youngman wrote:
> Lots of packages get bug reports for releases that are pretty old.
> The idea behind this module is to allow the --version output to emit a
> warning when the release is very old, asking the reader to try
> upgrading before reporting a bug.   You might use it like this for
> example:-
> 
>   /* emit the standard version information first. */
> 
>   if (release_age (&age))
>     {
>       double weeks = age / (86400.0 * 7);
>       printf(_("This release is %.0f weeks old."),
>            weeks);
>       if (weeks > 26.0)
>       {
>         printf(_("  If you are considering reporting a bug,\n"
>                  "please upgrade to the most recent release first.\n"));
>       }

You are assuming that you will be able to make a release at least
every 6 months? If not, you will be asking users to look for a newer
release, and then none exists - they will be frustrated for having wasted
their time.

Also, remember that most users use a distribution: Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSUSE,
Fedora, whatever. From the moment you make a release, to the moment your
release is picked up by the distribution, to the moment the distribution
is released, often more than 6 months have passed. So most of your users
will have this warning already from the first day they get a new release.

Last not least, when someone wants to report a bug, there are more things
he should take care of. I particularly encourage people to post complete
version information and complete samples. This should best be documented
in the manual - see e.g. the "Reporting Bugs" node in the GCC documentation.
This doc certainly won't fit into the few lines of --version or --help
output.

And finally, the GNU standards say that the email address that should be
used for reporting bugs is part of the --help output; so it is unrelated
to the --version output.

Bruno