Re: Question regarding the "Top 10 Oldest Problem Reports" in GNATS

That makes total sense. I imagine trying to track down a submitter from 1996 to ask for a re-test on NetBSD 10.x feels a bit more like digital archaeology than standard bug triage!

I can definitely see why they get stuck in limbo. Making a judgment call to close an ancient, sparsely documented bug sounds like a headache, especially when everyone's limited time is much better spent on active, modern issues.

Thank you for peeling back the curtain and explaining the reality of it. It gives me a much better appreciation for the overhead involved in managing GNATS. Out of pure curiosity, I think I'll still browse through a few of those top 10 just to see what kind of edge cases managed to survive the turn of the millennium, but I completely understand why they are left to rest.

Thanks again for the insight, and keep up the great work!

Regards,

Arya

On Mon, 15 Jun, 2026, 11:17 pm Greg Troxel, <gdt%lexort.com@localhost> wrote:

Aryabhata <bsdhexa%gmail.com@localhost> writes:

> Thank you for the response, and my apologies if my initial email came
> across as a request for someone else to do the heavy lifting! That
> definitely wasn't my intention.
>
> My question was driven purely out of curiosity regarding how the project
> manages deep legacy PRs. I wasn't sure if there was a specific project
> policy to keep them open as historical documentation, or if they just
> simply hadn't been touched in a while due to more pressing priorities.
>
> I completely understand that bug triage takes a massive amount of effort. I
> am more than happy to read through the list myself and see if there are any
> I can assess or test on my end, though my expertise might be limited on
> issues.

It is hard, and it often takes the ability to tell the submitter they
need to udpate to the latest version, retest, and file better debug
info. And then it's a judgement call to close as
unfounded/no-longer-reproducible.

It's not super fun to grovel over bugs, especially if the bug report
doesn't come with substantial investigation from the submitter. That
tends to lead to them just staying open.