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Writing FreeBSD Problem Reports

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$FreeBSD: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports/article.xml 53150 2019-06-14 09:41:35Z linimon $

This article describes how to best formulate and submit a problem report to the FreeBSD Project.

<personname> <firstname>Dag-Erling</firstname> <surname>Smørgrav</surname> </personname> <contrib>Contributed by </contrib>

<personname> <firstname>Mark</firstname> <surname>Linimon</surname> </personname>

<primary>problem reports</primary>

Introduction

One of the most frustrating experiences one can have as a software user is to submit a problem report only to have it summarily closed with a terse and unhelpful explanation like <quote>not a bug</quote> or <quote>bogus PR</quote>. Similarly, one of the most frustrating experiences as a software developer is to be flooded with problem reports that are not really problem reports but requests for support, or that contain little or no information about what the problem is and how to reproduce it.

This document attempts to describe how to write good problem reports. What, one asks, is a good problem report? Well, to go straight to the bottom line, a good problem report is one that can be analyzed and dealt with swiftly, to the mutual satisfaction of both user and developer.

Although the primary focus of this article is on FreeBSD problem reports, most of it should apply quite well to other software projects.

Note that this article is organized thematically, not chronologically. Read the entire document before submitting a problem report, rather than treating it as a step-by-step tutorial.

When to Submit a Problem Report

There are many types of problems, and not all of them should engender a problem report. Of course, nobody is perfect, and there will be times when what seems to be a bug in a program is, in fact, a misunderstanding of the syntax for a command or a typographical error in a configuration file (though that in itself may sometimes be indicative of poor documentation or poor error handling in the application). There are still many cases where submitting a problem report is clearly <emphasis>not</emphasis> the right course of action, and will only serve to frustrate both the submitter and the developers. Conversely, there are cases where it might be appropriate to submit a problem report about something else than a bug—an enhancement or a new feature, for instance.

So how does one determine what is a bug and what is not? As a simple rule of thumb, the problem is <emphasis>not</emphasis> a bug if it can be expressed as a question (usually of the form <quote>How do I do X?</quote> or <quote>Where can I find Y?</quote>). It is not always quite so black and white, but the question rule covers a large majority of cases. When looking for an answer, consider posing the question to the <link xlink:href="http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions">FreeBSD general questions mailing list</link>.

Consider these factors when submitting PRs about ports or other software that is not part of FreeBSD itself: