User Guide

GNU Image Manipulation Program
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Severity In most cases you should either leave this as ‘Normal’ or set it to ‘Enhancement’, if it is an enhancement request rather
than a malfunction. The maintainers will adjust the severity if they think it is warranted.
Priority In most cases you should leave this at ‘Normal’, and allow the maintainers to adjust it. Setting the priority to ‘Immedi-
ate’ or ‘Urgent’ usually just manages to annoy people.
Version Set this to the version of GIMP that you are using. Leave the Gnome version unspecified.
Operating System Set this to your OS unless you have a very good reason for thinking that the bug applies to all operating
systems.
You can ignore the rest. When you have filled out all of these things, press the ‘Commit’ button and your bug report will be
submitted. It will be assigned a number, which you may want to make note of; you will, however, be emailed any time somebody
makes a comment on your bug report or otherwise alters it, so you will receive reminders in any case. You can see the current
state of your bug report at any time by going to http://bugzilla.gnome.org and, at the bottom of the page, in the ‘Actions:’ area,
entering the bug number and pressing the ‘Find’ button.
Sometimes it is very helpful to augment a bug report with a screenshot or some other type of data. If you need to do this, go to
the web page for your bug report, click on the link ‘Create a New Attachment’, and follow the directions. But please don’t do
this unless you think the attachment is really going to be useful–and if you need to attach a screenshot, don’t make it any larger
than necessary. Bug reports are likely to remain on the system for years, so there is no sense in wasting memory.
B.3 What Happens to a Bug Report after you Submit it
At any time after it is submitted, a bug report has a ‘Status’ that describes how it is currently being handled. Here are the possible
values of Status and what they mean:
Unconfirmed This is the initial status of a bug report, from the time it is submitted until one of the maintainers reads it and
decides whether it is really a valid bug report. Sometimes the maintainers aren’t sure, and in the meantime leave the status
as ‘Unconfirmed’. In the worst cases, a bug report can stay unconfirmed for a year or longer, but this is considered a bad
thing and does not happen very often.
New This means that the bug report has been read by one of the maintainers, and is considered, for the moment at least, to be
valid. It does not necessarily mean that anything is going to be done about it immediately: some bug reports, especially
enhancement requests, may be perfectly valid and still go for a long time before anybody is able to deal with them. Many
bugs, on the other hand, are fixed within hours of being reported.
Assigned This means that a specific person has agreed to work on the bug. It does not, this world being the kind of world that it
is, mean that that person will actually do anything in particular, so for practical purposes this status means nearly the same
thing as ‘New’.
Reopened This means that the bug report was at some point considered by the maintainers to be resolved (i.e., finished), but new
information came in that caused them to change their minds: most likely, a change that was intended to fix the problem did
not completely work.
Needinfo This is a status you should pay particular attention to. It means that you did not supply enough information in your
bug report to enable anything to be done about it. In most cases, no further action will be taken on the bug report until
you supply additional information (by adding a comment). If too much time goes by without any input from you, the bug
report will eventually be resolved as ‘Incomplete’.
Resolved This means that the maintainers believe that they have finished dealing with the bug report. If you disagree, you can
re-open it, but since you cannot force anybody to work on a bug against their will, you should have a good reason for doing
so. Bugs can be resolved in a variety of ways. Here are the possible values of Resolution and what they mean:
Fixed The bug report is considered valid, and GIMP has been changed in a way that is considered to fix it.
Wontfix The maintainers agree that the bug report is valid, but it would take so much effort to fix, in relation to its
importance, that it is not worth the trouble.