Some points were answered by Warly, but here is my (long) answer: Juan Quintela wrote:
>>>>>>"michal" == Michal Bukovjan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>>>>> > >michal> Brad Felmey wrote: > >>>On Mon, 2002-03-18 at 18:33, Pixel wrote: >>> > >michal> Or set up and use and make people use Bugzilla system for cooker. >michal> Otherwise you forget / lose / duplicate a lot of information on this list ! > >I can speak for other MandrakeSoft employees, but for me mails on this >list is _way_ better than bugzilla. Reasons: > >- you can easily answer and ask for more information > You can do that with Bugzilla, too. In fact, it is open to much more people if you do that via Bugzilla. Anyone interested in a particual bug can add himself as CC and keep being informed. Just try to go to Mozilla.org and see new checkins, browse their Bugzilla a bit. I do this for my reported bugs on Mozilla project and always know what is going on, who cares about what, and even if my or others suggestion is postponed or rejected, I know that it is in there and that it was decided so and why. Anyone else from the community making such suggestion knows that as well or can find and don't bug mailing list or developers directly. And there is this voting stuff, which, for example, could be one of the perks of the Mandrake club, i.e. the ability to actually have your share in controlling Mandrake;s future. The voting stuff is used for example in Abiword's Bugzilla. > >- it is trivial to find the me too messages (in bugzilla they can also > happen, but people normally: > * don't report that they alsa have the same problem if there is > already a bug report > * They use a different bug ticket > Then there must be somebody who does bug triaging, who marks duplicates, etc. But then again, you need this anyway, as some Mandrake developers said. if there is a lot of (duplicate or not) bug reports, they are flooded by cooker mail and eventually stop reading it! > >- bugzilla is too slow, I can fix quite a lot of problems in one > kernel update (ok, in frozen state I only do minimal modifications), > but during cooker development, I fix several problems on each new > release. > Hmm, Mozilla Bugzilla now tracks around 130000 issues, has a lot of users (thousands), and is fast, so I guess it must be a hardware prob more than anything else. > >Using cooker list: >- users send mail >- I read meal >- I fix errors >- I can send a single mail (or only a few mails) telling that the > error is supposed to be fixed. >- people ack that the error is fixed or not. > Now this is the problem. You may read the mail, but the cooker traffic is very heavy and most Mandrake developers actually stopped reading the cooker mail (and they admit it!). That is the source of frustration (the original thread) people have here. They invest time in bug reporting, trying to make the distro better, and they are being ignored. Do you have a QA department? How do you automate their work? By personal mails? Let's say we have the following scenario (this is an example): I use Mandrake 8.2 beta 3 and have a problem with Alcatel modem (whatever kind). Can I: - find out somebody reported that? How? by searching archives? Was the problem resolved? How can I find out if the communication between original reporter and package maintainer took off the list? - I find in cooker mailing list that the Mandrake developer said he will look into that later, as he has other issues on his plate. Period. Did he? When? Is it considered showstopper? Not? Do they release 8.2 without this bug fixed? Do they postpone this because it depends on another issue (say modem setup in *drake tool) to be resolved? - I want to be informed when my Alcatel modem issue is resolved. How? No go. > > >Using bugzilla: >- have to go there to read it >- have to read each bug report >- fix errors >- go to _every_ single error that I fix, and answer that it should be > fixed >- wait for users to ack or nack the fix >- go through the bug reports mark them as fixed > >:((( > No. In Bugzilla, you design components (kernel, GNOME, KDE, X, etc.), every component has a default owner that is assigned to the new bug. Thus, if you are a 'owner' of kernel component. you only receive mail about new bugs regarding / assigned to this component. For every change in the bug (submission, change, duplicate report, new patch), you get a mail informing you about the change. You can ignore it, or go to Bugzilla, it's your choice. In every Bugzilla mail, you have a link into the system, that takes directly into a bug, so you can quickly navigate and change params. Further reasons touse Bugzilla: - milestone designation. I read everyday questions like this: will this make it into RC1? Final? Is this 9.0 material? What else is 9.0 material? Are there any showstoppers for release x.y? How can I help? - priority / severity : every bug can have a priority and severity assigned : blocker, major bug, minor bug, enhancements. Every developer can focus on blockers first, for example, and do enhancements at convenient time - keywords, status whiteboard, possibility to have patches in one place. Everything related to the bug is on one place, you can be sure that everyone has access to the same patch, for instance, and everyone is up to date when talking about a bug. - possibility to reassign bug to someone else, should the one working on a bug go to vacation, is sick or leave the company. The bug agenda is still the same. > >My experience is that bugzilla is very good for small packages, or >packages that don't have a lot of bug reports (a lot is more that 1/2 >daily). For bigger packages, email is easier/better in my experience. > In my experience, it is the other way around. For small projects, emails are enough. You can keep track of who wanted what, for some time. It is evident that in case of cooker, a lot of information was lost. It is evident that for such a project like Mandrake distro, a mailing list is not enough. Bugzilla was created for managing big projects, like Mozilla is (40+ full time developers), large (1000+) community making comment here and there. I began using that in my previous job to keep track of my client's request, and to manage a team of about 5 developers, and wouldn't want to go back. With just emails, it is not a project management, it's just a game of what you can remember or not. And last but not least, Bugzilla is actually fun to use, for both community and the developer. I am quite surprised you don't use this or similar system yet! I advise you and every other Mandrake developer to go to Mozilla site, and use their Bugzilla a bit, read some bugs, to get a feel what I am talking about here. Of course, it is not a cure on all problems, and for proper project management, it is not the only tool you need, but it is a good start. Very good one. Michal Bukovjan
