[asterisk-dev] Bugs/patches 16033 and 16590 ignored forever

[Steve Totaro]

On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Kirill 'Big K' Katsnelson <
kkm at adaptiveai.com> wrote:

> On 100416 0852, Steve Murphy wrote:
> > While I can understand your frustration, giving up now would make all
> you've
> > done a total waste of time. You will have to keep updating your patches
> with
> > every release to the end of time. You need to see it thru.
>
> Right. I will have to maintain the patches to the end of time, and this
> is what I already do. But, honestly, I do not see any other choice here.
>
> > First of all, did you go in and test your fixes on 1.4 thru trunk?
>
> No. We do not have resources here to do that.
>
> So, just for me to understand, the rule of thumb is that it is better
> not to fix anything at all than fix a bug in 1.6 alone, correct?
>
> > Next, did you test your patch in a rigorous manner?
>
> Define rigorous. The patches have been on a production server for
> months. But the usage pattern is narrow indeed.
>
> > Can you prove there will be side effects?
>
> No. Formal proof of algorithm correctness is a whole another story. I do
> not believe, though, that any piece of code in Asterisk has been proved
> to be correct. C, as a language, especially unyielding to formal proofs.
>
> > Another tactic is reviewboard. For anything but trivial bug fixes, you
> might
> > post your diffs there, and seek comments on fixes there.
>
> Advice taken and appreciated, thank you. But we are talking about a
> 2-line patch here (the second of the 2, which is only 3 months old).
> Does not look like it could be posted to the review board without rather
> irritating people there, right?
>
> > Next, did you test each release?
>
> Same as 1.4. Have no resources to test older releases, sorry. Changes
> have been production tested in 1.6.1.6, 1.6.1.12, 1.6.1.13, and 1.6.2.4
> only.
>
> > And next, find someone with commit privileges and a sympathetic ear, and
> > sell them on the patch. Help them, and usually, they will help you.
>
> Asked about that on the list already. Nobody.
>
> > Lastly, have patience. It could take months, if not a year or two to
> > get some stuff coordinated and into a future release. If your mods
> > are seen as possibly disruptive to other parts of the codebase, there
> > may be concerns or reservations that will need to be addressed. If
> > your fix isn't perceived to the be "best" fix for the problem, then
> > that could hold things up.
>
> A discussion would be indeed perfect. Dead silence is not.
>
> Now, an interesting observation. When I report a bug, it gets fixed by a
> developer, I confirm the fix works, and it gets into the 1.6 branches.
> Now, If I both report and fix the same bug, it is doomed to  sit there
> forever. That raises another question -- that is a strong disincentive
> for me to send in a patch *even if I have one*. Instead, I should
> consider my fix "a temporary hack" and then throw it away when an
> "official" fix is implemented by somebody else.
>
> That seems kind of wrong to me, but then, I am feeling feel like I am
> giving an advice when not asked for one.
>
>  -kkm
>

If I am reading this correctly, the patch is only two lines of code, why not
go for the low hanging fruit?

Thanks,
Steve Totaro
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