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1 | \versionid $Id: feedback.but,v 1.8 2002/08/12 14:08:55 simon Exp $ |
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2 | |
3 | \A{feedback} Feedback and bug reporting |
4 | |
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5 | This is a guide to providing feedback to the PuTTY development team. |
6 | It is provided as both a web page on the PuTTY site, and an appendix |
7 | in the PuTTY manual. |
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8 | |
9 | \K{feedback-general} gives some general guidelines for sending any |
10 | kind of e-mail to the development team. Following sections give more |
11 | specific guidelines for particular types of e-mail, such as bug |
12 | reports and feature requests. |
13 | |
14 | \H{feedback-general} General guidelines |
15 | |
16 | The PuTTY development team gets a \e{lot} of mail. If you can |
17 | possibly solve your own problem by reading the manual, reading the |
18 | FAQ, reading the web site, asking a fellow user, perhaps posting on |
19 | the newsgroup \W{news:comp.security.ssh}\c{comp.security.ssh}, or |
20 | some other means, then it would make our lives much easier. |
21 | |
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22 | We get so much e-mail that we literally do not have time to answer |
23 | it all. We regret this, but there's nothing we can do about it. So |
24 | if you can \e{possibly} avoid sending mail to the PuTTY team, we |
25 | recommend you do so. In particular, support requests |
26 | (\k{feedback-support}) are probably better sent to |
27 | \W{news:comp.security.ssh}\c{comp.security.ssh} or passed to a local |
28 | expert if possible. |
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29 | |
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30 | The PuTTY contact email address is a private mailing list containing |
31 | four or five core developers. Don't be put off by it being a mailing |
32 | list: if you need to send confidential data as part of a bug report, |
33 | you can trust the people on the list to respect that confidence. |
34 | Also, the archives aren't publicly available, so you shouldn't be |
35 | letting yourself in for any spam by sending us mail. |
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36 | |
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37 | \S{feedback-largefiles} Sending large attachments |
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38 | |
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39 | Since the PuTTY contact address is a mailing list, e-mails larger |
40 | than 40Kb will be held for inspection by the list administrator, and |
41 | will not be allowed through unless they really appear to be worth |
42 | their large size. |
43 | |
44 | If you are considering sending any kind of large data file to the |
45 | PuTTY team, it's almost always a bad idea, or at the very least it |
46 | would be better to ask us first whether we actually need the file. |
47 | Alternatively, you could put the file on a web site and just send us |
48 | the URL; that way, we don't have to download it unless we decide we |
49 | actually need it, and only one of us needs to download it instead of |
50 | it being automatically copied to all the developers. |
51 | |
52 | Some people like to send mail in MS Word format. Please \e{don't} |
53 | send us bug reports, or any other mail, as a Word document. Word |
54 | documents are roughly fifty times larger than writing the same |
55 | report in plain text. In addition, most of the PuTTY team read their |
56 | e-mail on Unix machines, so copying the file to a Windows box to run |
57 | Word is very inconvenient. Not only that, but several of us don't |
58 | even \e{have} a copy of Word! |
59 | |
60 | Some people like to send us screen shots when demonstrating a |
61 | problem. Please don't do this without checking with us first - we |
62 | almost never actually need the information in the screen shot. |
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63 | Sending a screen shot of an error box is almost certainly |
64 | unnecessary when you could just tell us in plain text what the error |
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65 | was. Sending a full-screen shot is \e{occasionally} useful, but it's |
66 | probably still wise to check whether we need it before sending it. |
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67 | |
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68 | If you \e{must} mail a screen shot, don't send it as a \cw{.BMP} |
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69 | file. \cw{BMP}s have no compression and they are \e{much} larger |
70 | than other image formats such as PNG, TIFF and GIF. Convert the file |
71 | to a properly compressed image format before sending it. |
72 | |
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73 | Please don't mail us executables, at all. Our mail server blocks all |
74 | incoming e-mail containing executables, as a defence against the |
75 | vast numbers of e-mail viruses we receive every day. If you mail us |
76 | an executable, it will just bounce. |
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77 | |
78 | If you have made a tiny modification to the PuTTY code, please send |
79 | us a \e{patch} to the source code if possible, rather than sending |
80 | us a huge \cw{.ZIP} file containing the complete sources plus your |
81 | modification. If you've only changed 10 lines, we'd prefer to |
82 | receive a mail that's 30 lines long than one containing multiple |
83 | megabytes of data we already have. |
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84 | |
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85 | \H{feedback-bugs} Reporting bugs |
86 | |
87 | If you think you have found a bug in PuTTY, your first steps should |
88 | be: |
89 | |
90 | \b Check the |
91 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist.html}{Wishlist |
92 | page} on the PuTTY website, and see if we already know about the |
93 | problem. If we do, it is almost certainly not necessary to mail us |
94 | about it, unless you think you have extra information that might be |
95 | helpful to us in fixing it. (Of course, if we actually \e{need} |
96 | specific extra information about a particular bug, the Wishlist page |
97 | will say so.) |
98 | |
99 | \b Check the |
100 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/changes.html}{Change |
101 | Log} on the PuTTY website, and see if we have already fixed the bug |
102 | in the development snapshots. |
103 | |
104 | \b Check the |
105 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/faq.html}{FAQ} |
106 | on the PuTTY website (also provided as \k{faq} in the manual), and |
107 | see if it answers your question. The FAQ lists the most common |
108 | things which people think are bugs, but which aren't bugs. |
109 | |
110 | \b Download the latest development snapshot and see if the problem |
111 | still happens with that. This really is worth doing. As a general |
112 | rule we aren't very interested in bugs that appear in the release |
113 | version but not in the development version, because that usually |
114 | means they are bugs we have \e{already fixed}. On the other hand, if |
115 | you can find a bug in the development version that doesn't appear in |
116 | the release, that's likely to be a new bug we've introduced since |
117 | the release and we're definitely interested in it. |
118 | |
119 | If none of those options solved your problem, and you still need to |
120 | report a bug to us, it is useful if you include some general |
121 | information: |
122 | |
123 | \b Tell us what version of PuTTY you are running. To find this out, |
124 | use the "About PuTTY" option from the System menu. Please \e{do not} |
125 | just tell us \q{I'm running the latest version}; e-mail can be |
126 | delayed and it may not be obvious which version was the latest at |
127 | the time you sent the message. |
128 | |
129 | \b Tell us what version of what OS you are running PuTTY on. |
130 | |
131 | \b Tell us what protocol you are connecting with: SSH, Telnet, |
132 | Rlogin or Raw mode. |
133 | |
134 | \b Tell us what kind of server you are connecting to; what OS, and |
135 | if possible what SSH server (if you're using SSH). You can get some |
136 | of this information from the PuTTY Event Log (see \k{using-eventlog} |
137 | in the manual). |
138 | |
139 | \b Send us the contents of the PuTTY Event Log, unless you |
140 | have a specific reason not to (for example, if it contains |
141 | confidential information that you think we should be able to solve |
142 | your problem without needing to know). |
143 | |
144 | \b Try to give us as much information as you can to help us |
145 | see the problem for ourselves. If possible, give us a step-by-step |
146 | sequence of \e{precise} instructions for reproducing the fault. |
147 | |
148 | \b Don't just tell us that PuTTY \q{does the wrong thing}; tell us |
149 | exactly and precisely what it did, and also tell us exactly and |
150 | precisely what you think it should have done instead. Some people |
151 | tell us PuTTY does the wrong thing, and it turns out that it was |
152 | doing the right thing and their expectations were wrong. Help to |
153 | avoid this problem by telling us exactly what you think it should |
154 | have done, and exactly what it did do. |
155 | |
156 | \b If you think you can, you're welcome to try to fix the problem |
157 | yourself. A patch to the code which fixes a bug is an excellent |
158 | addition to a bug report. However, a patch is never a \e{substitute} |
159 | for a good bug report; if your patch is wrong or inappropriate, and |
160 | you haven't supplied us with full information about the actual bug, |
161 | then we won't be able to find a better solution. |
162 | |
163 | \b |
164 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html}\cw{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html} |
165 | is an article on how to report bugs effectively in general. If your |
166 | bug report is \e{particularly} unclear, we may ask you to go away, |
167 | read this article, and then report the bug again. |
168 | |
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169 | It is reasonable to report bugs in PuTTY's documentation, if you |
170 | think the documentation is unclear or unhelpful. But we do need to |
171 | be given exact details of \e{what} you think the documentation has |
172 | failed to tell you, or \e{how} you think it could be made clearer. |
173 | If your problem is simply that you don't \e{understand} the |
174 | documentation, we suggest posting to the newsgroup |
175 | \W{news:comp.security.ssh}\c{comp.security.ssh} and see if someone |
176 | will explain what you need to know. \e{Then}, if you think the |
177 | documentation could usefully have told you that, send us a bug |
178 | report and explain how you think we should change it. |
179 | |
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180 | \H{feedback-features} Requesting extra features |
181 | |
182 | If you want to request a new feature in PuTTY, the very first things |
183 | you should do are: |
184 | |
185 | \b Check the |
186 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist.html}{Wishlist |
187 | page} on the PuTTY website, and see if your feature is already on |
188 | the list. If it is, it probably won't achieve very much to repeat |
189 | the request. (But see \k{feedback-feature-priority} if you want to |
190 | persuade us to give your particular feature higher priority.) |
191 | |
192 | \b Check the |
193 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/changes.html}{Change |
194 | Log} on the PuTTY website, and see if we have already added your |
195 | feature in the development snapshots. If it isn't clear, download |
196 | the latest development snapshot and see if the feature is present. |
197 | If it is, then it will also be in the next release and there is no |
198 | need to mail us at all. |
199 | |
200 | If you can't find your feature in either the development snapshots |
201 | \e{or} the Wishlist, then you probably do need to submit a feature |
202 | request. Since the PuTTY authors are very busy, it helps if you try |
203 | to do some of the work for us: |
204 | |
205 | \b Do as much of the design as you can. Think about \q{corner |
206 | cases}; think about how your feature interacts with other existing |
207 | features. Think about the user interface; if you can't come up with |
208 | a simple and intuitive interface to your feature, you shouldn't be |
209 | surprised if we can't either. Always imagine whether it's possible |
210 | for there to be more than one, or less than one, of something you'd |
211 | assumed there would be one of. (For example, if you were to want |
212 | PuTTY to put an icon in the System tray rather than the Taskbar, you |
213 | should think about what happens if there's more than one PuTTY |
214 | active; how would the user tell which was which?) |
215 | |
216 | \b If you can program, it may be worth offering to write the feature |
217 | yourself and send us a patch. However, it is likely to be helpful |
218 | if you confer with us first; there may be design issues you haven't |
219 | thought of, or we may be about to make big changes to the code which |
220 | your patch would clash with, or something. If you check with the |
221 | maintainers first, there is a better chance of your code actually |
222 | being usable. |
223 | |
224 | \H{feedback-feature-priority} Requesting features that have already |
225 | been requested |
226 | |
227 | If a feature is already listed on the Wishlist, then it usually |
228 | means we would like to add it to PuTTY at some point. However, this |
229 | may not be in the near future. If there's a feature on the Wishlist |
230 | which you would like to see in the \e{near} future, there are |
231 | several things you can do to try to increase its priority level: |
232 | |
233 | \b Mail us and vote for it. (Be sure to mention that you've seen it |
234 | on the Wishlist, or we might think you haven't even \e{read} the |
235 | Wishlist). This probably won't have very \e{much} effect; if a huge |
236 | number of people vote for something then it may make a difference, |
237 | but one or two extra votes for a particular feature are unlikely to |
238 | change our priority list immediately. Also, don't expect a reply. |
239 | |
240 | \b Offer us money if we do the work sooner rather than later. This |
241 | sometimes works, but not always. The PuTTY team all have full-time |
242 | jobs and we're doing all of this work in our free time; we may |
243 | sometimes be willing to give up some more of our free time in |
244 | exchange for some money, but if you try to bribe us for a \e{big} |
245 | feature it's entirely possible that we simply won't have the time to |
246 | spare - whether you pay us or not. (Also, we don't accept bribes to |
247 | add \e{bad} features to the Wishlist, because our desire to provide |
248 | high-quality software to the users comes first.) |
249 | |
250 | \b Offer to help us write the code. This is probably the \e{only} |
251 | way to get a feature implemented quickly, if it's a big one that we |
252 | don't have time to do ourselves. |
253 | |
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254 | \H{feedback-support} Support requests |
255 | |
256 | If you're trying to make PuTTY do something for you and it isn't |
257 | working, but you're not sure whether it's a bug or not, then |
258 | \e{please} consider looking for help somewhere else. This is one of |
259 | the most common types of mail the PuTTY team receives, and we simply |
260 | don't have time to answer all the questions. Questions of this type |
261 | include: |
262 | |
263 | \b If you want to do something with PuTTY but have no idea where to |
264 | start, and reading the manual hasn't helped, try posting to the |
265 | newsgroup \W{news:comp.security.ssh}\c{comp.security.ssh} and see if |
266 | someone can explain it to you. |
267 | |
268 | \b If you have tried to do something with PuTTY but it hasn't |
269 | worked, and you aren't sure whether it's a bug in PuTTY or a bug in |
270 | your SSH server or simply that you're not doing it right, then try |
271 | posting to \W{news:comp.security.ssh}\c{comp.security.ssh} and see |
272 | if someone can solve your problem. Or try doing the same thing with |
273 | a different SSH client and see if it works with that. Please do not |
274 | report it as a PuTTY bug unless you are really sure it \e{is} a bug |
275 | in PuTTY. |
276 | |
277 | \b If you have successfully made a connection to your server and now |
278 | need to know what to type at the server's command prompt, or other |
279 | details of how to use the server-end software, talk to your server's |
280 | system administrator. This is not the PuTTY team's problem. PuTTY is |
281 | only a communications tool, like a telephone; if you can't speak the |
282 | same language as the person at the other end of the phone, it isn't |
283 | the telephone company's job to teach it to you. |
284 | |
285 | If you absolutely cannot get a support question answered any other |
286 | way, you can try mailing it to us, but we can't guarantee to have |
287 | time to answer it. |
288 | |
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289 | \H{feedback-webadmin} Web server administration |
290 | |
291 | If the PuTTY web site is down (Connection Timed Out), please don't |
292 | bother mailing us to tell us about it. Most of us read our e-mail on |
293 | the same machines that host the web site, so if those machines are |
294 | down then we will notice \e{before} we read our e-mail. So there's |
295 | no point telling us our servers are down. |
296 | |
297 | Of course, if the web site has some other error (Connection Refused, |
298 | 404 Not Found, 403 Forbidden, or something else) then we might |
299 | \e{not} have noticed and it might still be worth telling us about it. |
300 | |
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301 | If you want to report a problem with our web site, check that you're |
302 | looking at our \e{real} web site and not a mirror. The real web site |
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303 | is at |
304 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/}\c{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/}; |
305 | if that's not where you're reading this, then don't report the |
306 | problem to us until you've checked that it's really a problem with |
307 | the main site. If it's only a problem with the mirror, you should |
308 | try to contact the administrator of that mirror site first, and only |
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309 | contact us if that doesn't solve the problem (in case we need to |
310 | remove the mirror from our list). |
311 | |
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312 | \H{feedback-permission} Asking permission for things |
313 | |
314 | PuTTY is distributed under the MIT Licence (see \k{licence} for |
315 | details). This means you can do almost \e{anything} you like with |
316 | our software, our source code, and our documentation. The only |
317 | things you aren't allowed to do are to remove our copyright notices |
318 | or the licence text itself, or to hold us legally responsible if |
319 | something goes wrong. |
320 | |
321 | So if you want permission to include PuTTY on a magazine cover disk, |
322 | or as part of a collection of useful software on a CD or a web site, |
323 | then \e{permission is already granted}. You don't have to mail us |
324 | and ask. Just go ahead and do it. We don't mind. |
325 | |
326 | If you want to use parts of the PuTTY source code in another |
327 | program, then it might be worth mailing us to talk about technical |
328 | details, but if all you want is to ask permission then you don't |
329 | need to bother. You already have permission. |
330 | |
331 | \H{feedback-mirrors} Mirroring the PuTTY web site |
332 | |
333 | All mirrors of the PuTTY web site are welcome. Please don't bother |
334 | asking us for permission before setting up a mirror. You already |
335 | have permission. We are always happy to have more mirrors. |
336 | |
337 | If you mail us \e{after} you have set up the mirror, and remember to |
338 | let us know which country your mirror is in, then we'll add it to |
339 | the |
340 | \W{http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/mirrors.html}{Mirrors |
341 | page} on the PuTTY website. |
342 | |
343 | If you have technical questions about the process of mirroring, then |
344 | you might want to mail us before setting up the mirror; but if you |
345 | just want to ask for permission, you don't need to. You already have |
346 | permission. |
347 | |
348 | \H{feedback-compliments} Praise and compliments |
349 | |
350 | One of the most rewarding things about maintaining free software is |
351 | getting e-mails that just say \q{thanks}. We are always happy to |
352 | receive e-mails of this type. |
353 | |
354 | Regrettably we don't have time to answer them all in person. If you |
355 | mail us a compliment and don't receive a reply, \e{please} don't |
356 | think we've ignored you. We did receive it and we were happy about |
357 | it; we just didn't have time to tell you so personally. |
358 | |
359 | To everyone who's ever sent us praise and compliments, in the past |
360 | and the future: \e{you're welcome}! |
361 | |
362 | \H{feedback-address} E-mail address |
363 | |
364 | The actual address to mail is |
365 | \cw{<\W{mailto:putty@projects.tartarus.org}{putty@projects.tartarus.org}>}. |