xref: /freebsd-10.0-release/gnu/usr.bin/send-pr/README

	send-pr - sends bug reports to a central support site

`send-pr' uses electronic mail to submit support questions and
software bugs to a central site.  No piece of software is perfect, and
software organizations understand this `send-pr' is designed to allow
users who have problems to submit reports of these problems to sites
responsible for supporting the software in question, in a defined form
which can be read by an electronically managed database.

`send-pr' is part of a suite of programs known collectively as GNATS,
an acronym for Problem Report Management System.  GNATS consists of
several programs which, used in concert, formulate and partially
administer a database of Problem Reports, or PRs, at a central support
site.  A PR goes through several states in its lifetime; GNATS tracks
the PR and all information associated with it through each state and
finally acts as an archive for PRs which have been resolved.

The same engine can be used to submit bugs to any number of support
sites by setting up aliases for each of them; `send-pr' error-checks
each PR as it is sent to be sure that the category specified matches a
category supported by the site in question.

`send-pr' invokes an editor on a problem report template (after trying
to fill in some fields with reasonable default values).  When you exit
the editor, `send-pr' sends the completed form to the support site.
At the support site, the PR is assigned a unique number and is stored
in the GNATS database according to its category and customer-id.  GNATS
automatically replies with an acknowledgement, citing the category and
the PR number.

See the Texinfo file `send-pr.texi' or the Info file `send-pr.info'
for detailed installation and usage information.

See the file MANIFEST for a list of the files which should have
accompanied this distribution.

See `send-pr.texi', `send-pr.info', or the file INSTALL for the
installation procedure for `send-pr'.


Copyright (c) 1993, Free Software Foundation, Inc.  
See the file COPYING for copyright information concerning this
distribution and all its components.