DEVELOPERS' INFORMATION REGARDING THE BUG PROCESSING SYSTEM
                                       
   The system doesn't (yet) route problem reports to the appropriate
   developer. Rather, its intent is to help ensure that they don't go
   unanswered.
   
   Initially, a bug report is submitted by a user as an ordinary mail
   message to debian-bugs@pixar.com. This will then be given a number,
   acknowledged to the user, and forwarded to the debian-devel list.
   
   The Subject line will have Bug#nnn: added, and the Reply-To will be
   modified to include debian-bugs@pixar.com.
   
   A developer who sees a bug on debian-devel and takes responsibility
   for it should hit Reply in their favourite mailreader, and then edit
   the To field to include debian-bugs-done as well as or instead of the
   other addresses which are present (debian-bugs and the address of
   original submitter of the problem report).
   
   The developers' Subject line should look like Bug#nnn: or Re:
   Bug#nnn:, which will allow the script to mark that bug as processed.
   
   Whenever a message is received at debian-bugs-done with a Subject
   looking like either of those the corresponding bug will be marked as
   done, and messages confirming this will be sent to the original
   submitter of the bug report and to the person marking it as done. The
   message will not be forwarded to debian-devel by default - if this is
   desired the person marking the bug as done should include debian-devel
   in their To field.
   
   Anything that arrives at debian-bugs-done without Bug#nn or Re:
   Bug#nnn at the start of the Subject will be ignored, apart from
   generating a warning message that is hopefully clear enough to avoid
   confusing users who accidentally send messages to it.
   
   If a developer wishes to reply to a bug report without marking the bug
   as done they may simply reply to the message. Their reply will (by
   default) go to debian-bugs and to the original submitter of the bug
   report. The bug tracking system will file the reply reply with the
   rest of the logs for that bug report and forward it to debian-devel.
   The bug will not be marked as done.
   
   Every Friday a list of outstanding bug reports is posted to
   debian-devel; every Tuesday a list of bug reports that have gone
   unanswered too long is posted. 
   
Sending copies of bug reports to other addresses

   Sometimes it is necessary to send a copy of a bug report to some
   address other than debian-devel, which is where they are normally
   sent.
   
   You could do this by CC'ing your bug report to the other address(es),
   but then the other copies would not have the bug report number
   inserted in the Subject line. When the recipients reply they will
   probably preserve the debian-bugs entry in the header and have their
   message filed as a new bug report.
   
   The right way to do this is to use the X-Debian-CC header. Add a line
   like this to your message's mail header (not to the psuedo header with
   the Package field):

 X-Debian-CC: other-list@cosmic.edu

   This will cause the bug tracking system to send a copy of your report
   to the address(es) in the X-Debian-CC line as well as to debian-bugs.
   
   This feature can be combined with X-Debian-PR: quiet - see below. 
   
Quiet processing of bug reports

   It is possible to get the bug tracking system not to forward your
   messages to debian-bugs on to debian-devel. To do this you need to add
   this line to your message's mail header (not to the psuedo header with
   the Package field):

 X-Debian-PR: quiet

   This will cause it not to send the message on; the fact that you have
   done this will be noted in the acknowledgement message you get. The
   message will still be filed, and assigned a bug number if it doesn't
   already have one. 
   
Reopening and reassigning bugs

   It is possible to reassign bug reports to other packages, and to
   reopen erroneously-closed ones, by sending mail to
   debian-bugs-request@pixar.com.
   
   The mail you send should be a series of commands, one per line. You'll
   receive a reply which looks like a transcript of your message being
   interpreted, with a response to each command. No notifications are
   sent to anyone; however, the messages are logged and made available in
   the WWW pages.
   
   The commands are:
   
   reassign bugnumber package
          Records that bug #bugnumber is a bug in package. This can be
          used to set the package if the user forgot the psuedo-header,
          or to change an earlier assignment.
          
   reopen bugnumber
          Reopens #bugnumber if it is closed. If it is not closed it
          won't do anything. If the bug is closed it is reopened, and you
          are recorded as the originator of the report, so that you will
          get the ack when it is closed again. This is to avoid flooding
          potentially-naive users with many notifications about the same
          report.
          
   help
          Sends this help message.
          
   Suggestions for future features are welcome, though anything that
   requires the sending of notifications to various parties about the
   state(s) of bug report(s) is unlikely to be implemented. 
   
Future plans

   At some point the bug reporting system may be changed to send bug
   reports directly to the developer in question, rather than to
   debian-devel. When this happens the Package: secondary header field
   may become mandatory - at the moment omitting it just produces a
   warning message.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
    Ian Jackson / iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk. 8th September 1995.