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I've recently filed a bug with gnome-shell to the GNOME maintainers, on their website (upstream).

However, I'm not sure whether I was maybe supposed to file it to the package maintainers of my distribution (Fedora).

In the future, which should I prefer for similar programs? Or should I file the bug both upstream and to my distribution maintainers (which doesn't make a lot of sense honestly)?

jcora
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    Kind of an either-or. Usually distros have tighter dev circles which may or may not make things easier to get through for you. One way or another people are going to reconcile bug fixes, whether that means a Fedora dev submits it upstream for you or Fedora gets the update when the package maintainer does a rebase. It's in the distro's interests to not stray too far from what other distros are based on and contributing towards. – Bratchley Jul 18 '13 at 20:43
  • Hey @JoelDavis, thanks for the response. Where could I find more information about how distribution/development policies and methodologies? – jcora Jul 18 '13 at 20:51
  • I'm just speaking from personal experience. Most people have tried to publish bugfixes from time to time so that part's sort of tribal knowledge. The rebase is just logical deduction, the package versions (on Fedora) after the hyphen are the patches applied to the same upstream version. I've read bugzilla comments with multiple developers debating rebases or deciding that rather than backporting a fix from upstream, they'll just rebase off the newer version, etc. It's mostly just about hanging around and in the mix long enough to pick up on it. – Bratchley Jul 19 '13 at 00:36
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    A recent [article in Linux Weekly News](https://lwn.net/Articles/555868/) is about this issue — it doesn't give an _answer_, but you may find the discussion interesting. – mattdm Jul 23 '13 at 02:33

2 Answers2

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I would suggest filing the bug report with the distribution's bug tracking system, if you are using their build.

They can then escalate the bug report to the upstream maintainer, should it turn out that it exists in a vanilla build as well.

The rationale behind this is simply that since many distributions apply patches of their own, unless you are certain that the bug exists in a vanilla build, the packager is likely in a better position to be able to test both possible configurations (vanilla and patched) than an upstream developer who might even be running their system on a completely different architecture that your distribution of choice doesn't even support.

Depending on the complexity of the program and what kind of unexplainable behavior you are seeing, it might even make sense to file a bug against the distribution's bug tracker even if you are using a vanilla build of the program in question but patched versions of any dependencies.

You can certainly escalate the bug to the upstream maintainer if you get no response from the distribution's package maintainer for a reasonable amount of time. In that case, include a link to the original report as well, for context, and cross-reference in the distribution's bug tracking system so that it is easy to go from one to the other.

Bottom line: don't bother the upstream maintainers unless it's a problem with their code or the distribution maintainer is completely unresponsive.

user
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  • Damn it. Hopefully this bug report I've filed will prove to be useful... – jcora Jul 18 '13 at 20:53
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    I doubt you need to retract your bug report and move it to the distribution's bug tracker, but be prepared for the possibility that it'll get closed as "can't reproduce" upstream. In that case, definitely consider submitting it to Fedora's bug tracker and referencing the upstream report. – user Jul 18 '13 at 20:54
  • I'm currently doing more research on filing bugs (reading https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html), and I'll be filing the bug to Fedora/RedHat as soon as I'm finished. – jcora Jul 18 '13 at 21:03
  • Also, with some distributions (e.g. Debian) it's pretty trivial to submit a bug report to the distribution maintainer (using `reportbug` http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting) - so you don't even have to go and find out where to submit them. – EightBitTony Jul 18 '13 at 21:19
  • @Yannbane the three times I've had to use it, it worked perfectly, not a huge sample set I admit. – EightBitTony Jul 19 '13 at 07:03
  • Well, it might be because I've been using testing at the time, but still. Each time I tried to report a bug, it just refused to cooperate. :( – jcora Jul 19 '13 at 07:14
  • @Yannbane These comments aren't really adding anything to the answer. – user Jul 19 '13 at 07:18
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I would always file it in both the distribution as well as the upstream. If possible reference that you did this in both systems. Provide a direct URL to your bug so that it's obvious what you did.

Many times I've seen bugs that have sat with no movement so it's best to give as much visibility to the issue as you can both locally to the application developers as well as the distributions that are bundling the app.

But use your best judgement.

slm
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