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Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

code.google.com

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Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#21

Post by titaniumdecoy »

mfisher87 wrote: post #11
cryptoz wrote: post #6

Google's handling of Android bugs is unpleasant and difficult to swallow. The QA seems minimal and little or no attention is paid to user filed bugs. The barometer on the Nexus 5 is still broken after a year+ of software updates. Infuriating. The bug with hundreds of stars is marked obsolete! The barometer is still broken. I'd like to debug and fix it but other things have priority, and I don't feel confident that if…

Most major companies, to me, seem to be following Apple's example and forcing a shorter support lifecycle for each device, expecting users to simply replace their "obsolete" device with the newest one.

This is a common but completely unfair criticism of Apple. Plenty of people complained when iOS 7 was made available for the iPhone 4 (because the hardware was too slow to run it properly). And Apple still sells and supports relatively ancient hardware (the iPad mini) as a result of their current strategy of selling last year's model as the second-best option.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#22

Post by krschultz »

At some point in a long living project, you have to declare some bugs are #wontfix. You are just lieing to yourself if you think you will ever get to the end of the bug backlog. It also can become an anchor, the team is focused solely on fixing bugs here and there instead of moving the ball forward (and hopefully fixing more fundamental problems along the way). I've made the call to mass close tickets like this. It's never fun, but sometimes you have to do it.

These ticket seem to fall into two buckets.

1) Pre Android 5.x bugs. I can understand why they don't want to invest here. Effort is definitely better spent trying to get more devices onto Android 5.x

2) Feature requests for apps. I bet a lot of these are either on a roadmap for a future version of Android, or are simply never going to be added.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#23

Post by yourad_io »

kelukelugames wrote: post #5

Silently? This isn't that dramatic. edit. title has been fixed.

Silently == closing without comment. Dramatic or not depends on the issue:

This[1] issue (note the id) has 6275 people following it and 1659 comments/activities.

Marking it obsolete with "(No comment was entered for this change.)" is kinda middle-finger-ish, don't you think?

[1] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#24

Post by munchhausen »

This is very unpalatable, and makes me reconsider whether my next phone will, again, be an Android device.

This sort of "fuck you" attitude towards legitimate feedback and valid bug reports from users doesn't bode well for Google, and indicates that any talk of "openness" of Android is just that - empty talk. If the Android development process is going to be a 100% closed, cathedral-type endeavour, I might as well get an iPhone.

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#27

Post by hga »

gcb0 wrote: post #3

all my bugs from android 2.3 (still heavily used in the us and out) up to android 4.2 were closed as obsolete. several are somewhat fixed on 5.0 (most by removing the feature) but nothing about support even nexus devices from 2.5 years ago. 3 were security ones confirmed by a few comments. I've been getting obsolete emails on my low profile bugs since November all the way to Dec 25... Google just gave up. i think nob…

Echoes of Jamie Zawinski "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers" software development model? (http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html)

Not quite the same thing, but Google and company sure look to believe they have better things to do....

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#28

Post by diafygi »

krschultz wrote: post #22

At some point in a long living project, you have to declare some bugs are #wontfix. You are just lieing to yourself if you think you will ever get to the end of the bug backlog. It also can become an anchor, the team is focused solely on fixing bugs here and there instead of moving the ball forward (and hopefully fixing more fundamental problems along the way). I've made the call to mass close tickets like this. It's…

Then mark them as WontFix with a comment explaining why. Marking Obsolete without comment and restricting further comments is a huge slap in the face to your biggest supporters (those who went through the trouble of trying to contribute positively by filing/commenting/starring the bug).

Re: Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25

#30

Post by edent »

TillE wrote: post #25

That's a shame. I had 1285 (USSD API) starred, which would have allowed for some interesting carrier-specific apps. Do any mobile OSes let apps get a USSD response?

Same here - that's how I found out about this. ISTR that Symbian let you run & receive USSD commands.
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