Ask HN: Etiquette for open source bug reports? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Etiquette for open source bug reports?

4 pointsdelinquentme7 comments

So I've been working on a few projects in which I've found a number of bugs. It turns out I found 3 in the time span of 20 minutes and I sent them merrily along to the developers ...

Is this bad etiquette? Should I be waiting a day / a few hours between submissions?

View on HN

If you find bugs, then you find bugs. Just make sure that the bug hasn't already been reported, and that it is actually a bug (not just you expecting something to behave differently - the unexpected behaviour may be intentional, or at least documented)

Other than that, though; bugs are bugs, and waiting to submit them to spare a developer's feelings doesn't really help anyone.

yeah this is kind of what I was after ... I'm sure its not "HOORAY MORE BUGS" but I think I agree with "waiting to submit them to spare a developer's feelings doesn't really help anyone"

If the bugs are new it shouldn't matter how quickly they are filed.

Do be sure to search existing bugs before adding more however. A unique bug report is helpful but a duplicate can be a nuisance. Sometimes the duplicate will be a closed bug too, e.g, "we found this and decided not to fix it for the following reason:".

Or "this has been fixed in a newer version".

That's not necessarily an open and shut case. People have their reasons for being unable to upgrade software; while the developer can certainly start by pointing out the new version, it is sometimes reasonable to resolve the issue by releasing a patch of an older version.

I think sending as many as you find when you find them is fine, as long as you present yourself well. I recently wrote (and have given this presentation at a conference) on the topic of communication etiquette in bug reports for open source, believe it or not.

http://www.alfajango.com/blog/communicating-with-engineers-a...

If you found them in the first 20 minutes of using the program, there's a good chance they've been already reported. Search the bug database before submitting, if these are indeed new bugs, developers won't mind if you submit a bunch of them in one go.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com