Re: [MinGW-dvlpr] RFC: Dealing with MSDN errors.

[Cesar S. <ces...@gm...>]

On 03-12-2017 06:50, Keith Marshall wrote:
> How should we best deal with reports of probable erroneous MSDN content
> such as: https://sourceforge.net/p/mingw/bugs/2248/ ?
> 
> Here, the poster provides an acceptable test case, which demonstrates
> that the MSDN information is most likely incorrect, but can refer us
> only to known sources of plagiarised Microsoft header file content, to
> support his proposed correction.  Obviously, we cannot examine those
> plagiarised sources, but should we just take his word for it, and
> correct our headers, as he suggests?
> 
> Opinions?

It would have been best if the reporter had found the correct prototype
by trial and error. We cannot do that now, since we already know the answer.

You could argue that the correct prototype is now found in "publicly
available documentation". Which, in this case, is the text of the bug
report itself. We already consider Internet references like blog posts
as "publicly available documentation", if I am not mistaken. You could
add this on top of your patch:

  "MSDN is wrong. The correct type for parameter X is Y according to
https://sf.net/..."

On the other hand, for such a small change, it could also pass as "fair
use" instance, even if the source itself is copyrighted.

Maybe make the "documentation or references" requirement more explicit
on the bug reporting page. We do link to
http://www.mingw.org/reporting_bugs, but it is a bit buried in there.
Maybe write a dedicated page, like the one on
https://wiki.winehq.org/Clean_Room_Guidelines

Regards,

Cesar