Poisonous depersonalisation and `request a fix in ...'

[Ian Jackson]

Matthew Paul Thomas writes ("Re: Ubuntu Bugzilla to Malone (Launchpad) migration complete"):
> On 19 Jan, 2006, at 4:05 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > Furthermore, when I file a bug I'm not `requesting a fix'.  I'm
> > `notifying the developers'.  For many bug reports I already have a
> > local fix or workaround; the usual purpose of reporting the bug is to
> > improve the software, not to allow me to get my work done.
> >
> > Filing bugs is not an abstract action directed at software.  It's a
> > social action directed at people.
> 
> That's not how Bugzilla works. When Ubuntu was using Bugzilla, were it  
> not for the hack to deal with Ubuntu's large number of component names,  
> you wouldn't have known who a bug was assigned to until after you  
> reported it. And in bugzilla.mozilla.org, many components are like  
> Malone in that a bug isn't assigned to anyone human even after it's  
> reported. If I wanted to perform a social action directed at  
> developers, I'd get on the phone to them instead. :-)

Um, boggle.

It's true that I don't necessarily know who will end up reading my bug
report.  However:

Firstly, often I _will_ know because I have filed similar bugs before
and established a relationship with the maintainer(s).

Secondly, projects have an organisational culture so that even if I
don't know exactly which individual will end up dealing with my
message, I _can_ often have an understanding of how they will probably
react to particular things and what would or would not be a good way
to approach them.

Thirdly, if I don't know much about the organisational culture into
which I'm sending my report, I will be more thorough and cautious, so
as to try to make a good first impression.  I'll treat the interaction
more as one with a stranger, where I'll apply wider norms of
communication and err on the side of caution so as not to get caught
out by cultural differences.

Surely you see that all of these situations involve me knowing roughly
how, where, and who by (maybe not always which specific individual,
but by what kind of culture and in what kind of context) my message is
going to be received ?

A bug system is primarily a _communication tool_.  I can't use it for
sending a communication if I don't know how and in what context that
message will appear to the recipient.

Systems which distance and disconnect me from the other people I'm
working with result in poisonous depersonalisation: ultimately, this
leads to people treating the other participants in the free software
world as objects to be manipulated rather than as people.

Ian.