Buggy bug handling

I’ve experienced an especially nasty MythTV bug. It took me significant effort to diagnose the problem and to find the corresponding place in the source code. I decided to report the bug. Looking at the MythTV BTS I’ve found the bug has already been reported but without further explanation and without any attention from the developers. Although I didn’t have a patch I could provide a hint to solving the problem. I was careful enough to proceed with reading bug reporting instructions, stating I should post further comments on bugs to a mailing list rather than to the BTS. So I looked for the mailing list address (not provided in the instructions) and sent a mail to the list providing clue about the given problem.

I’ve received a reply explaining that I’m not on the list and so my message is awaiting moderator’s approval. Well, I can understand that. But what I can’t understand is that my message hasn’t been passed nor rejected so far, for more than 3 weeks. I suspect the moderator’s queue is simply ignored. If it is so then it is impolite to bug reporters and it harms bug fixing. Although I could subscribe to the list, disable incoming e-mails (I’m not interested in the list at all) and send my message again, I’m not going to go through such obstacles just to send a single hint. Free software projects should encourage cooperation and welcome bug reports instead of requiring unnecessary registrations from occasional bug reporters. Too bad it isn’t always so.


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