Clarify instructions for bug reassignment, emphasizing the

need to inform the maintainers you reassign the bug to. Also
hint to using cloned bugs to avoid re-reporting. Heavily based
on patch by Marc Haber - thanks for the work! Closes: #484806

git-svn-id: svn://anonscm.debian.org/ddp/manuals/trunk/developers-reference@5223 313b444b-1b9f-4f58-a734-7bb04f332e8d

diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 490604f3de35cd4352fa33f72d1114140a524877..8f4ffa21065f689b41bfa661fb43c89eca6e9127 100644 (file)
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -33,6 +33,10 @@ developers-reference (3.4.0) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
     distributions. Emphasize the importance of contacting the SRM
     team before upload. Closes: #459343
   * Update instructions for package removal requests. Closes: #454216
+  * Clarify instructions for bug reassignment, emphasizing the
+    need to inform the maintainers you reassign the bug to. Also
+    hint to using cloned bugs to avoid re-reporting. Heavily based
+    on patch by Marc Haber - thanks for the work! Closes: #484806
 
  -- Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt <he@debian.org>  Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:26:33 +0200
 

diff --git a/pkgs.dbk b/pkgs.dbk
index f6206d0a939b8f5d3452d5e82ab1463648e1e2f8..05ebf11c3233ea14a1397939c17b4138226f4216 100644 (file)
--- a/pkgs.dbk
+++ b/pkgs.dbk
@@ -662,11 +662,25 @@ procedure</ulink>.
 If the bug is real but it's caused by another package, just reassign the bug to
 the right package.  If you don't know which package it should be reassigned to,
 you should ask for help on <link linkend="irc-channels">IRC</link> or
-on &email-debian-devel;.  Please make sure that the
-maintainer(s) of the package the bug is reassigned to know why you reassigned
-it.
+on &email-debian-devel;.  Please inform the maintainer(s) of the package
+you reassign the bug to, for example by Cc:ing the message that does the
+reassign to <email>packagename@packages.debian.org</email> and explaining
+your reasons in that mail. Please note that a simple reassignment is
+<emphasis>not</emphasis> e-mailed to the maintainers of the package
+being reassigned to, so they won't know about it until they look at
+a bug overview for their packages.
 </para>
 <para>
+If the bug affects the operation of your package, please consider
+cloning the bug and reassigning the clone to the package that really
+causes the behavior. Otherwise, the bug will not be shown in your
+package's bug list, possibly causing users to report the same bug over
+and over again. You should block "your" bug with the reassigned, cloned
+bug to document the relationship.
+</para>
+</listitem>
+<listitem>
+<para>
 Sometimes you also have to adjust the severity of the bug so that it matches
 our definition of the severity.  That's because people tend to inflate the
 severity of bugs to make sure their bugs are fixed quickly.  Some bugs may even