Bug report severity

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Friday, May 11, 2012 00:28:46 Mehrdad wrote:
> On Thursday, 10 May 2012 at 22:23:15 UTC, Stewart Gordon wrote:
> > On 10/05/2012 23:12, Mehrdad wrote:
> >> How do you decide if something is 'critical', 'major',
> >> 'blocker', or just 'normal'? Is
> >> there a rule of thumb I could use?
> > 
> > http://d.puremagic.com/issues/page.cgi?id=fields.html#bug_severity
> > 
> > Stewart.
> 
> Hmmm... thanks for the link.
> 
> I'm having trouble understanding how to apply them, though.
> 
> For example, why are these bugs "critical"?
> http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=5314
> http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3445
> 
> Are things like "wrong error message" or "wrong documentation"
> considered to be on par with ICEs?
> 
> Like, I see an ICE like
> http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=6774
> 
> and I wonder why it's not "blocker" or at least "critical"...

It's pretty much entirely a factor of who reported the bug and whether anyone 
else has messed with the priority since it was reported. There is no 
patrolling or enforcement of bug severity. I think that Don will typically 
mark ICEs as critical when he sees them, but for the most part, a bug is at 
whatever priority the bug's reporter put it at. Anyone who wants to try and 
clean that up is free to do so, but Walter doesn't want to waste time arguing 
over bug priorities, and I don't think that he wants other developers doing so 
either, since it reduces how much is being gotten done over something which is 
pretty subjective.

- Jonathan M Davis