

Ask HN: Etiquette for open source bug reports? - delinquentme

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 ...<p>Is this bad etiquette?  Should I be waiting a day / a few hours between submissions?
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samlev
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.

~~~
delinquentme
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"

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makecheck
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:".

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

~~~
makecheck
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.

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JangoSteve
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...](http://www.alfajango.com/blog/communicating-with-engineers-
and-contributing-to-open-source/)

------
axk
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.

