this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2025
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Bug reports 🐞on🐛any🦠software🪲

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When a bug tracker is inside the exclusive walled-gardens of MS Github or Gitlab.com, and you cannot or will not enter, where do you file your bug report? Here, of course. This is a refuge where you can report bugs that are otherwise unreportable due to technical or ethical constraints.

⚠of course there are no guarantees it will be seen by anyone relevant. Hopefully some kind souls will volunteer to proxy the reports.

related communities in the decentralised free world:

!broken_software@lemmings.world

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/47790706

I just encountered the same confusion as others in the linked thread. The pipx tool has this in the man page:

       --pip-args PIP_ARGS
              Arbitrary pip arguments to pass directly to pip install/upgrade commands

So of course I had a space after --pip-args. It failed because the software does not work as documented. Someone reported this in 2019. The software is still inconsistent with the docs. Yet someone closed the bug report.

Re-opening or requesting re-opening requires licking Microsoft’s boots. I’m done with MS Github logins.

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[–] nesc@lemmy.cafe -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not a bug per se and I think that's the default behaviour for many python programs but it needs clarification.

[–] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

No, it’s a bug.

It’s unclear why the discipline has eroded to lose sight of the mantra: software should work as documented and the docs should express what the software does. Whenever there is an inconsistency between the docs and the code, it’s a bug, plain and simple. As far as WHERE the bug is, that can be debated.

Either the bug is in the man page, or it is in the code. But there is a bug nonetheless. Perhaps the problem is that devs do not realise that bug reports cover the docs too. If the code is doing what they think it should do, they close the bug report instead of fixing the docs.

[–] nesc@lemmy.cafe -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's not a bug, you are free to document it.

[–] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

As explained, it’s a bug. And no I am not free to fix it. Only people with an MS Github account to can even attempt to fix the manpage bug. And from there, the dev still must accept the pull request.

Also, it’s wrong to frame this as a labor issue. WHO does the fix is immateral. A bug report is for capturing the existence of a bug. Whether someone is assigned or not or whether there is a volunteer is independent of the determination of whether you have a bug. If the dev decides “not a bug”, you’re wasting your time with a pull req.

[–] nesc@lemmy.cafe -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In the time it took you to write a post and multiple comments you could have registered and fixed it, instead of anxietymaxxing and telling how wrong it is not to consider outdated documentation a bug.

[–] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Nonsense. Not on Github. I’m done dancing for Microsoft, who locked me out when my email address was no longer good. I’m not a Microsoft boot licker. The time it takes to login every time with all the 2FA bullshit is longer than that taken to write this thread -- longer yet to find a disposable email service that MS does not regard as such.

BTW, you seem clueless about the purpose of this community. Read the sidebar.

[–] aivoton@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Have you tried to reach the maintainers directly through e.g. email? I understand that you might have an ideological incompatibility with M$, but surely you could try to reach the maintainers out of the platform?

[–] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 months ago

I generally don’t even look for an email address because a vast majority of GH users do not list one on their profile and I can’t be bothered to fish email addresses out of their git commits, which would not generally be reliable. Bernát Gábor is exceptional in this regard and happens to have an email address -- at gmail. I wouldn’t do gmail but perhaps i'll reach out to one of the other maintainers.