My Presentation at Libre Planet.

[Jastiv]

I did a presentation on the Joy of Bug Reporting at Libre Planet.
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/librepl ... reporting/

If you want the example of bug reporting on a project video without the overlay, it is on youtube here.

youtu.be/3IoKLmbS_zI

This happened in March, and they just got videos out today. I hope people will start doing some bug reporting on projects that need it.

[Julius]

That's pretty cool, thanks for sharing! You also seem to be a confident public speaker, so keep at it

Having never been at a fsf conference I wonder though if the audience isn't already so technically inclined that they probably reported many bugs before Might be a case of a talk looking for a more suitable venue.

Which brings me to an interesting point: with the recent increase in indie/comercial games available on Linux there has been a sort of clash of cultures in regards to bug reports / support requests. Quite a few smaller developers have stated that they get an much higher amount of support requests from Linux users than others, and most of the time this is considered a bad thing costing time and money.
From their perspective it is kind of understandable (a sale is a sale, and after market support often is only a cost), and it might be partially due to lower quality Linux ports from inexperienced developers. However, I suspect it is mainly a cultural difference in so far as most Linux users have gotten used to open-source projects encuraging testing and bug reporting.

[fluffrabbit]

I watched half of it. I think it's interesting that there could be a demographic which is confident enough with computers to watch FSF presentations and compile software, but may need a little help reporting bugs and as yet lacks the savvy for programming. The presentation is nice and all, but I usually report bugs out of either anger or confusion (emotional reasons) rather than as a way of contributing. If reporting bugs gratifies one's ego to the extent where they want to become the best bug reporter in the world, that individual must be very easy to please.

@Julius- Most projects are alright, but I have run into a few that don't seem to embrace the culture. Phrases like "almost open source" (in reference to unwillingness to accept patches) or "don't bother me" licenses are like a wet blanket. I also saw GitHub (post-Microsoft acquisition) refer potential repo contributors to its "Open Source Guide" if they "have a bug or an idea". The irony of Microsoft telling people about open source is sickening.

[GunChleoc]

I usually report bugs out of either anger or confusion (emotional reasons) rather than as a way of contributing. If reporting bugs gratifies one's ego to the extent where they want to become the best bug reporter in the world, that individual must be very easy to please.

Well there are other reasons for reporting bugs. You might enjoy helping the project, you might want to improve the project but have no programming skills, or you want to use it and need something fixes so you can, or you enjoy making high-quality bug reports, you might enjoy the hunt for bugs, or, or... there can be many reasons.