A bug's tale

Have you ever filed a bug with ubuntu? Software is merely a reflection of our humanity and as such it is not perfect. Still assuming you make your way through the bug reporting process, you may be left wondering what next? As a user it's unclear what will happen to your report once submitted.  Charles Profitt has done us a wonderful favor by not only visually laying out the process, but in addition has taken a step back and examined a good workflow for what to do when we have a "problem" using ubuntu. Check it out here: Problem Lifecycle

It's important to note that indeed not every problem is a bug and as such the simplest workflow thru the chart is to get help and solve the problem without creating a bug report :-) Ubuntu has a wonderful community with a variety of outlets to get help. Don't let this bog you down! Interact with the community in whatever way is preferable for you. In addition, in the diagram Charles doesn't mention all of the states a bug can be in. In the past, a bug you reported might have been marked as invalid or won't fix. These states can be really confusing and upsetting for a bug reporter. In future posts, I hope to share more information about how a bug is worked once it has been reported, and more importantly how you as a user can help get your bug resolved as quickly as possible.

For now, if you want to learn more about the the ubuntu problem lifecycle check out Charles's session on "Problem Lifecycle" at 21:30 UTC on 2 Feb 2012. Thanks for giving a talk Charles!