Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!godzilla.ele.toronto.EDU!moraes
From: moraes@godzilla.ele.toronto.EDU (Mark Moraes)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: What I'll be hoping about bug reports
Message-ID: <8807130249.AA21260@godzilla.ele.toronto.edu>
Date: 13 Jul 88 00:09:05 GMT
References: <8113@elsie.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: EECG, University of Toronto
Lines: 43

In article <8113@elsie.UUCP> elsie!ado@CVL.UMD.EDU (Arthur David Olson) writes:
>In article <19880711115445.2.RWS@KILLINGTON.LCS.MIT.EDU>, RWS@ZERMATT.LCS.MIT.EDU (Robert Scheifler) writes:
>
>> I hope you all continue to send bug reports to xbugs@expo.  If you want to
>> send them to other mailing lists or newgroups as well, that's fine with
>> me, but if you expect to continue to use releases from MIT, you'll
>> minimize new-release headaches by getting the bugs fixed in our sources.
	.
>Let MIT read about the fixes in the other mailing lists and newsgroups,
>just as they expect the rest of us to do.

The X11R2 distribution was incredibly easy to setup and gave us
considerably fewer headaches than R1. (We have one source tree
shadowed on two architectures - works like a charm) It also had plenty
of bugs fixed. 

Some of us remember the steady stream of bug fixes that were provided
by MIT for R1.  Outside ftp land, we're grateful for the
archive-server that was setup for distribution of the bug fixes.

Bug fixes are distributed for X11 - not frequent maybe, but consider
the work involved in testing all fixes for the different
architectures, displays etc. that X supports.

There's nothing to stop you from not sending bug-reports/fixes to
xbugs. That's a good way to guarantee that the fixes never make their
way into the official distribution - patching new releases for old
bugs is real fun, right? Personally, I'd like to have future
distributions fixed. The present mechanism for bugfixes (crucial fixes
on the list, batches to the server, patches from authors of
contributed software) seems reasonable. Do we really want a flood of
unofficial fixes, apparent fixes, new bugs, and portability problems?

Bear in mind the fact that we've benefited from others that have sent
in bug reports and fixes, which have been incorporated into the
distributions. It might be worth extending the same courtesy to future
users of X. 

Sending bugfixes to the xpert list/comp.windows.x might be a good
thing - but then I read it as a newsgroup. People who get it in their
mailboxes might mind.

I think that the people at MIT/The X Consortium are being helpful.
(Nah, they're probably being nice only to me....)