Subject: bug#41373: GNU ELPA: Add "reporting bugs" to individual package pages

From: Eric Abrahamsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2020 13:31:29 -0700

On 06/01/20 15:52 PM, Glenn Morris wrote:
> Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
>
>> 5. Adds a "Package:" pseudo-header
>
> That is not the right thing to do.
> A debbugs.gnu.org package is not the same thing as an elpa.gnu.org package. [1]
> The valid debbugs.gnu.org packages are listed at
> https://debbugs.gnu.org/Packages.html
> Trying to use one not listed there will result in the mail going to the
> help-debbugs list.
>
> Separately, you should add an "X-Debbugs-CC" pseudo-header, because it
> seems some mail clients don't allow arbitrary (real) X- mail headers.

Thanks for this. You'd mentioned a pseudo-header in your previous
message, and all I could see defined was "Package" and "Version", so I
assumed you meant Package; my mistake.

> I hope this is at most restricted to elpa.gnu.org packages.
> There are already thousands of open Emacs bug reports.
> If reports for melpa packages start getting funnelled into the same
> system, it will make it harder than it already is to find relevant reports.

Good point. You could also argue that, by putting their packages on
Melpa, these authors have already implicitly hinted that they'd rather
not interact with the Emacs organization/infrastructure.

> (Also IMO this doesn't actually fix the issue from this bug report.
> Each elpa.gnu.org package should still be defining where it wants its
> bug reports to go to. This may be the maintainer address, github issue,
> or whatever.)

While I was succumbing to mission-creep this afternoon, I thought of the
same thing: an "Issues-to" package header. This would also give package
authors an explicit mechanism to opt out of debbugs.

> [1] With some effort, someone could in principle automatically create an
> elpa-X package on debbugs for every package X on elpa.gnu.org.

Dunno about this. I started with this idea from the point of view of an
(ELPA) package maintainer. At this point, I'm happy to just implement
whatever everyone agrees makes the most sense.

Eric