Re: What is a regression?

[Gerald Pfeifer <gerald at pfeifer dot com>]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, Mark Mitchell wrote:
> [...]

I realized that the documentation we currently have up at
  http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs/management.html
was partly incorrect (only listing P1 to P2) and certainly
quite incomplete, so I tried to cast my understanding and
what I found in this thread into a documentation update.

Thoughts on the patch below (which I have not committed yet)?

Gerald

Index: bugs/management.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/gcc/wwwdocs/htdocs/bugs/management.html,v
retrieving revision 1.25
diff -u -3 -p -r1.25 management.html
--- bugs/management.html	14 Jan 2007 11:38:36 -0000	1.25
+++ bugs/management.html	1 Jan 2008 21:46:11 -0000
@@ -168,13 +168,37 @@ problem where an easy workaround exists 
 
 <h3 align="center" id="priority">Priority</h3>
 This field describes the importance and order in which a bug should be
-fixed.  It is utilized by the programmers/engineers to
-prioritize their work to be done.  The available priorities are:
+fixed.  The available priorities are:
 
 <table cellspacing="3">
-<tr><th>P1</th><td>Most important</td></tr>
-<tr><th>P2</th><td></td></tr>
-<tr><th>P3</th><td>Least important</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <th valign="top">P1</th>
+  <td>Most important.  This generally labels a regression which the
+    release manager feels should be addressed for the next release
+    including wrong-code regressions.<br />
+    For practical reasons, releases tend to go out with P1 bugs open,
+    but we try to minimize those.  If you want to downgrade a P1 bug,
+    CC the release manager on the PR and add a note.
+  </td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <th valign="top">P2</th>
+  <td>This generally indicates a regression users will notice on a
+    major platform, which is not P1 though.
+  </td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <th valign="top">P3</th>
+  <td>The default priority for new PRs which have not been prioritized
+    yet.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <th valign="top">P4</th>
+  <td>Usually not a regression, but still of some priority.
+    ICE-after-valid-error bugs fall in this category, for example, as
+    do regressions that have persisted for several major releases.
+  </td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <th valign="top">P5</th>
+  <td>Least important.  Not on the radar of release management.</td>
+</tr>
 </table>
 
 </td></tr>