Please support different "Also affects distribution" targets for different bug tasks

[Emmet Hikory]

Some other releases may track bugs that require different solutions for different targets (e.g. kernel-version-specific arrangements, etc.) as different bugs in their native bugtrackers. When updating the tasks of the Malone report to indicate that work must be done in different targeted releases, it would be nice to be able add "Also Affects" to show commentary in other distributions for the same issue. This is especially useful for cases of "Fails to build from source", and "Cannot start" bugs, as the surrounding environment is different for each release.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Emmet, what do you mean by "other releases"? Can you give a couple of examples?

[Emmet Hikory (persia)]

Other Ubuntu releases. As an example, bug #160104 represents an issue that only appears in the Gutsy kernel, as the API changed between Feisty and Gutsy, and was reverted for Hardy (upstream kernel API changes). Debian has three different bugs about this, and it would be nice to be able to easily link them against the different release tasks. I'm not sure if this issue counts as FTBFS or Cannot-Run, as the package in question is designed to be compiled on the user workstation after installation.

The same sorts of issues can apply to other API reversions in other libraries upstream, although I don't have any other examples offhand.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Sorry, I need a bit more background here. I see that bug 160104 links to debbugs #432522. What are the other two debbugs reports that should be linked, and why aren't they mentioned in the description or comments? Are they really distinct bug reports for different Debian releases, or are they parallel reports for the same bug (as described in bug 52613)?

Is this bug related to bug 72194?

[Emmet Hikory (persia)]

Distinct Debian bugs. The problem in gutsy is debbugs #432522, but fixing it for hardy would cause Ubuntu to have debbugs #461753. I'm not personally sure of the status of feisty when compared against debbugs #433322, but I believe that was due to a different issue. Note that the later two are not distinct Debian releases, but are distinct kernel versions and distinct Ubuntu releases (gutsy, hardy).