Many Android bugs with 500+ stars closed as obsolete on December 25 • Hacker News Board

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

#11

Post by mfisher87 » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:19 PM UTC

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.

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

#12

Post by yourad_io » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:21 PM UTC

sarciszewski wrote: post #4

diafygi wrote: post #2

EDIT: The original title of this post was "Someone silently closed 37% (19/52) of Android bugs with 500+ stars on Dec 25th" (it has been involuntarily changed by the mods). Here's the list (all marked Obsolete silently by e...@google.com): https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1257 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1211 https://code.g…

https://code.google.com/p/google-security-research/issues/li... cevans => cev... (Chris Evans is known to be part of Project Zero.) Given their censorship scheme, I can't help but wonder if e...@google.com means eric@google.com? If so, the culprit is likely Eric Schmidt. EDIT: Okay, can anyone explain WHY they're downvoting this?

The same person/profile[1] who closed these issues has been merging issues as far back as 2013[2]. I doubt that would have been him.

[1] https://code.google.com/u/116776574616066648526/

[2] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=63433

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

#13

Post by eli » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:21 PM UTC

kelukelugames wrote: post #5

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

I think the implication is that it happened without much fanfare and during a holiday because they didn't want people to notice.

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

#14

Post by dsr_ » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:22 PM UTC

For the casual onlooker: that's not closed as in resolved, that's closed as in irrelevant.

The people who are unhappy with those bugs probably consider them very relevant.

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

#15

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:26 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#16

Post by gst » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:26 PM UTC

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…

The last device sold by Google that now runs an Android release of 4.2 or earlier was (afaik) the Nexus S - which was released in 2010. I think it's reasonable to stop support for a particular device after something like 4 years.

Yes, there are other 3rd party manufacturers that sold devices based on such outdated versions up until recently. But why should it be Google's task to provide updates for these devices? That sounds like something that the manufacturers are supposed to do.

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

#17

Post by josephhainline » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:26 PM UTC

You say "bugs" but many of these are clearly feature requests. There's a pretty big difference.

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

#18

Post by mik3y » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:26 PM UTC

It's not a shock; if anything I'm surprised they didn't shut down the issue tracker altogether. It's been little more than a glorified pastebin of generally poor-quality, unreviewed reports.

Perhaps this is a sign someone's going to start triaging things, but I'd doubt it..

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

#19

Post by Zigurd » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:26 PM UTC

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…

Why would Android 2.3 be heavily used, even in embedded systems, and if it is, why isn't it the OEMs' problem?

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

#20

Post by 51Cards » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 6:27 PM UTC

I saw several email alerts come through as these were being closed. 3 of them were submitted by myself and at least one I would say is still relevant in Android 5.0 That said with the history of how bugs have been handled there I wasn't very surprised.