-\versionid $Id: feedback.but,v 1.4 2002/04/27 16:20:16 simon Exp $
+\versionid $Id: feedback.but,v 1.15 2003/09/23 10:12:02 jacob Exp $
\A{feedback} Feedback and bug reporting
\W{news:comp.security.ssh}\c{comp.security.ssh} or passed to a local
expert if possible.
-The PuTTY contact email address is a mailing list. For this reason,
-e-mails larger than 40Kb will be held for inspection by the list
-administrator, and will not be allowed through unless they really
-appear to be worth their large size. Therefore:
-
-\b Don't send your bug report as a Word document. Word documents are
-roughly fifty times larger than writing the same report in plain
-text. In addition, most of the PuTTY team read their e-mail on Unix
-machines, so copying the attachment to a Windows box to run Word is
-very inconvenient. Not only that, but several of us don't even
-\e{have} a copy of Word!
-
-\b Don't mail large screen shots without checking with us first.
+The PuTTY contact email address is a private mailing list containing
+four or five core developers. Don't be put off by it being a mailing
+list: if you need to send confidential data as part of a bug report,
+you can trust the people on the list to respect that confidence.
+Also, the archives aren't publicly available, so you shouldn't be
+letting yourself in for any spam by sending us mail.
+
+Please use a meaningful subject line on your message. We get a lot of
+mail, and it's hard to find the message we're looking for if they all
+have subject lines like \q{PuTTY bug}.
+
+\S{feedback-largefiles} Sending large attachments
+
+Since the PuTTY contact address is a mailing list, e-mails larger
+than 40Kb will be held for inspection by the list administrator, and
+will not be allowed through unless they really appear to be worth
+their large size.
+
+If you are considering sending any kind of large data file to the
+PuTTY team, it's almost always a bad idea, or at the very least it
+would be better to ask us first whether we actually need the file.
+Alternatively, you could put the file on a web site and just send us
+the URL; that way, we don't have to download it unless we decide we
+actually need it, and only one of us needs to download it instead of
+it being automatically copied to all the developers.
+
+Some people like to send mail in MS Word format. Please \e{don't}
+send us bug reports, or any other mail, as a Word document. Word
+documents are roughly fifty times larger than writing the same
+report in plain text. In addition, most of the PuTTY team read their
+e-mail on Unix machines, so copying the file to a Windows box to run
+Word is very inconvenient. Not only that, but several of us don't
+even \e{have} a copy of Word!
+
+Some people like to send us screen shots when demonstrating a
+problem. Please don't do this without checking with us first - we
+almost never actually need the information in the screen shot.
Sending a screen shot of an error box is almost certainly
unnecessary when you could just tell us in plain text what the error
-was. Sending a full-screen shot is sometimes useful, but it's
-probably still wise to check with us before sending it.
+was. (On some versions of Windows, pressing Ctrl-C when the error
+box is displayed will copy the text of the message to the clipboard.)
+Sending a full-screen shot is \e{occasionally} useful, but it's
+probably still wise to check whether we need it before sending it.
-\b If you want to send us a screen shot, or any other kind of large
-data file, it is much more convenient for us if you can put the file
-on a web site and send us the URL. That way (a) we don't have to
-download it at all if it doesn't look necessary; and (b) only one
-member of the team needs to download it, instead of it being
-automatically sent to everyone on the mailing list.
-
-\b If you \e{must} mail a screen shot, don't send it as a \cw{.BMP}
+If you \e{must} mail a screen shot, don't send it as a \cw{.BMP}
file. \cw{BMP}s have no compression and they are \e{much} larger
than other image formats such as PNG, TIFF and GIF. Convert the file
to a properly compressed image format before sending it.
-(Note that although the PuTTY contact address is a mailing list, the
-archives aren't publicly available, so you shouldn't be letting
-yourself in for any spam by sending us mail.)
+Please don't mail us executables, at all. Our mail server blocks all
+incoming e-mail containing executables, as a defence against the
+vast numbers of e-mail viruses we receive every day. If you mail us
+an executable, it will just bounce.
+
+If you have made a tiny modification to the PuTTY code, please send
+us a \e{patch} to the source code if possible, rather than sending
+us a huge \cw{.ZIP} file containing the complete sources plus your
+modification. If you've only changed 10 lines, we'd prefer to
+receive a mail that's 30 lines long than one containing multiple
+megabytes of data we already have.
\H{feedback-bugs} Reporting bugs
be:
\b Check the
-\W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist.html}{Wishlist
+\W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist/}{Wishlist
page} on the PuTTY website, and see if we already know about the
problem. If we do, it is almost certainly not necessary to mail us
about it, unless you think you have extra information that might be
the time you sent the message.
\b Tell us what version of what OS you are running PuTTY on.
+(If you're running on Windows for Alpha, tell us, or we'll assume
+you're running on Intel as this is overwhelmingly the case.)
\b Tell us what protocol you are connecting with: SSH, Telnet,
Rlogin or Raw mode.
you should do are:
\b Check the
-\W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist.html}{Wishlist
+\W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist/}{Wishlist
page} on the PuTTY website, and see if your feature is already on
the list. If it is, it probably won't achieve very much to repeat
the request. (But see \k{feedback-feature-priority} if you want to
persuade us to give your particular feature higher priority.)
-\b Check the
+\b Check the Wishlist and
\W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/changes.html}{Change
Log} on the PuTTY website, and see if we have already added your
feature in the development snapshots. If it isn't clear, download
Wishlist). This probably won't have very \e{much} effect; if a huge
number of people vote for something then it may make a difference,
but one or two extra votes for a particular feature are unlikely to
-change our priority list immediately. Also, don't expect a reply.
+change our priority list immediately. Offering a new and compelling
+justification might help. Also, don't expect a reply.
\b Offer us money if we do the work sooner rather than later. This
sometimes works, but not always. The PuTTY team all have full-time
report it as a PuTTY bug unless you are really sure it \e{is} a bug
in PuTTY.
+\b If someone else installed PuTTY for you, or you're using PuTTY on
+someone else's computer, try asking them for help first. They're more
+likely to understand how they installed it and what they expected you
+to use it for than we are.
+
\b If you have successfully made a connection to your server and now
need to know what to type at the server's command prompt, or other
details of how to use the server-end software, talk to your server's
404 Not Found, 403 Forbidden, or something else) then we might
\e{not} have noticed and it might still be worth telling us about it.
+If you want to report a problem with our web site, check that you're
+looking at our \e{real} web site and not a mirror. The real web site
+is at
+\W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/}\c{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/};
+if that's not where you're reading this, then don't report the
+problem to us until you've checked that it's really a problem with
+the main site. If it's only a problem with the mirror, you should
+try to contact the administrator of that mirror site first, and only
+contact us if that doesn't solve the problem (in case we need to
+remove the mirror from our list).
+
\H{feedback-permission} Asking permission for things
PuTTY is distributed under the MIT Licence (see \k{licence} for
projects / u / mdw / putty / blobdiff