Re: bug tracker discussion
Christopher Faylor cgf-use-the-mailinglist-ple...@cygwin.com writes: Can I get a show of hands? How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? There is only one good, easy to use, user/maintainer friendly bug tracker I know of: debbugs [1] The best thing about it is that it is very lightweight and controllable by email. There are exiting UI's for Emacs that make the management non-time consuming. I'm not in favor of any of the other exiting web based bug trackers. Jari [1] The code is freely available. E.g. It seems to have gained momentum amongst the GNU project as well.
Re: bug tracker discussion
On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 05:06:42PM +0300, Jari Aalto wrote: Christopher Faylor cgf-use-the-mailinglist-ple...@cygwin.com writes: Can I get a show of hands? How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? There is only one good, easy to use, user/maintainer friendly bug tracker I know of: debbugs [1] You obviously weren't paying attention to the cygwin mailing list discussion. sourceware.org uses bugzilla (or gnats but no one wants to go there). That's what we'd be using. I wasn't soliciting for the best bug tracker. I was asking if maintainers wanted to use bugzilla. I should have made that clearer although I thought people would have been reading the discussion in the cygwin list. cgf
Re: bug tracker discussion
On 20/08/2010 19:01, Christopher Faylor wrote: Can I get a show of hands? How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? I would definitely use it, the same way I currently use the GCC bug tracker: I'd set up a whine email reminder, so that I didn't have to exert any extra effort or feel that any extra burden was imposed on me, I'd just hear about the new bug reports that I was interested in anyway. I'd also want to be the default Cc for bugs in my area, but given that, I'm not persuaded by the this is extra effort on the recipient's part argument; it's just more emails, that you can equally easily filter into the same email folder as the rest of your mails from the main cygwin list if that's how you want to handle it. (Also, I'd be utterly brutal about RESO INVALID anything that I reckoned was a support request rather than an actual bug.) cheers, DaveK
bug tracker discussion
Can I get a show of hands? How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? One problem that I see immediately is that if we publicly adopt a bug tracker EVERY maintainer will have to use it. We can't expect a normal user to understand that they send email to the mailing list for binutils but use the bug tracker for screen. Another thing that I think is important is that we would have to adopt a standard for how we treat bugs. I'm not really keen on using the bug tracker as a knowledge base for end-user ssh problems. I don't think that's what a bug tracker is for. That's what a FAQ is for. And, in that line, how about per-package FAQs on the cygwin site? cg
Re: bug tracker discussion
2010/8/20 Christopher Faylor cgf-use-the-mailinglist-ple...@cygwin.com: Can I get a show of hands? How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? 1+ Yes, it's a lot more work for all parties, the server maintainer, the package maintainer and the user. And I believe it will suffer from the same problems as the almost unusable perl core tracker - everybody uses the mailing list for serious bugs. But at least it's an access point for other types of users, and maybe we'll get patches also. setup.exe got a lot of patches this way. And did I say I really like the github, google and trac trackers (issue lists), and hate RT and bugzilla. -- Reini Urban
Re: bug tracker discussion
On 8/20/2010 11:01 AM, Christopher Faylor wrote: Can I get a show of hands? How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? -0 (Not in favor, but I'll monitor it if it's implemented.) We're still going to have to monitor the mailing list, so this just adds burden AFAICT. Does anyone really think we'll get fewer duplicate reports or better reports with a bug tracker? I don't. I expect it'll either not get used or get so full of cruft that it'll become unusable. And, in that line, how about per-package FAQs on the cygwin site? Isn't that what the /usr/share/doc/Cygwin files are for? What's the advantage of having a FAQ section on the cygwin site? How will it be maintained? -- David Rothenberger daver...@acm.org This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. Had there been an actual emergency, then you would no longer be here.
Re: bug tracker discussion
On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 08:11:31PM +0200, Reini Urban wrote: 2010/8/20 Christopher Faylor cgf-use-the-mailinglist-ple...@cygwin.com: Can I get a show of hands? ?How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? 1+ Yes, it's a lot more work for all parties, the server maintainer, the package maintainer and the user. And I believe it will suffer from the same problems as the almost unusable perl core tracker - everybody uses the mailing list for serious bugs. But at least it's an access point for other types of users, and maybe we'll get patches also. setup.exe got a lot of patches this way. I just read the bugzilla entries for bugzilla. I'm wondering why the then maintainer thought it was necessary to add patches to bugzilla. That's pretty nonstandard. And did I say I really like the github, google and trac trackers (issue lists), and hate RT and bugzilla. Once again, I'm not going to consider implementing something new for Cygwin. The rest of sourceware uses bugzilla and that's what we'll be using. cgf
Re: bug tracker discussion
On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 11:22:46AM -0700, David Rothenberger wrote: On 8/20/2010 11:01 AM, Christopher Faylor wrote: Can I get a show of hands? How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? -0 (Not in favor, but I'll monitor it if it's implemented.) We're still going to have to monitor the mailing list, so this just adds burden AFAICT. Does anyone really think we'll get fewer duplicate reports or better reports with a bug tracker? I don't. I expect it'll either not get used or get so full of cruft that it'll become unusable. I agree with you 100% I personally think it's going to be a maintenance burden for me personally. If this is going to be useful, someone has to monitor it and keep it clean. And we'll have people clamoring for accounts. And people claiming that they can't get in. And, I'll see all of the same non-problems in the bug reports that we see in the list except when I close something as WONTFIX it will be reopened by some cranky user. That's just more stomach acid for me. However, if we can get someone to take on some of this burden, I'm willing to do what's necessary to tweak bugzilla. I don't want to stand in the way of progress if we everyone thinks this is a good idea. I respect the opinions of the maintainers here because they have demonstrated that they know what they are doing. I don't automatically give credence to random internet voices because they stress their points in insulting or forceful ways, no matter how much they want to be seen as experts. So, if a majority of maintainers think this is a good idea I'm much more likely to be convinced. (I don't speak for Corinna here, of course) And, in that line, how about per-package FAQs on the cygwin site? Isn't that what the /usr/share/doc/Cygwin files are for? What's the advantage of having a FAQ section on the cygwin site? How will it be maintained? Just a URL you can point to. cgf
Re: bug tracker discussion
On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 02:24:31PM -0400, Christopher Faylor wrote: On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 08:11:31PM +0200, Reini Urban wrote: 2010/8/20 Christopher Faylor cgf-use-the-mailinglist-ple...@cygwin.com: Can I get a show of hands? ?How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? 1+ Yes, it's a lot more work for all parties, the server maintainer, the package maintainer and the user. And I believe it will suffer from the same problems as the almost unusable perl core tracker - everybody uses the mailing list for serious bugs. But at least it's an access point for other types of users, and maybe we'll get patches also. setup.exe got a lot of patches this way. I just read the bugzilla entries for bugzilla. I'm wondering why the then setup.exe maintainer thought it was necessary to add patches to bugzilla. That's pretty nonstandard.
Re: bug tracker discussion
On Aug 20 14:31, Christopher Faylor wrote: On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 11:22:46AM -0700, David Rothenberger wrote: On 8/20/2010 11:01 AM, Christopher Faylor wrote: Can I get a show of hands? How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? -0 (Not in favor, but I'll monitor it if it's implemented.) We're still going to have to monitor the mailing list, so this just adds burden AFAICT. Does anyone really think we'll get fewer duplicate reports or better reports with a bug tracker? I don't. I expect it'll either not get used or get so full of cruft that it'll become unusable. I agree with you 100% I personally think it's going to be a maintenance burden for me personally. If this is going to be useful, someone has to monitor it and keep it clean. And we'll have people clamoring for accounts. And people claiming that they can't get in. And, I'll see all of the same non-problems in the bug reports that we see in the list except when I close something as WONTFIX it will be reopened by some cranky user. That's just more stomach acid for me. However, if we can get someone to take on some of this burden, I'm willing to do what's necessary to tweak bugzilla. I don't want to stand in the way of progress if we everyone thinks this is a good idea. I respect the opinions of the maintainers here because they have demonstrated that they know what they are doing. I don't automatically give credence to random internet voices because they stress their points in insulting or forceful ways, no matter how much they want to be seen as experts. So, if a majority of maintainers think this is a good idea I'm much more likely to be convinced. (I don't speak for Corinna here, of course) You do, you just didn't know it. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: bug tracker discussion
On Fri, 2010-08-20 at 14:01 -0400, Christopher Faylor wrote: Can I get a show of hands? How many package maintainers would like to have a bug tracker? Depends on how we use it. Don't get me wrong -- I like working with Bugzilla, and we do use it *internally* for Cygwin/X, but the list is still the support forum for end-users. It doesn't take much imagination to see what would happen if bugzilla was where users went first for support: it would be a full-time job (hmm...) just bug wrangling (translate: marking almost all the bugs RESOLVED NOTABUG, which is just a nice way of saying PEBKAC :-). The list is a better way of handling these sort of queries, where more people (including other end-users with more experience) are around to address them. OTOH, I do sometimes miss things on the main list due to the signal-to-noise ratio, which I imaging would be even greater for a maintainer with only a small number of packages. So using Bugzilla internally would be helpful. IOW: * Mailing list remains support forum for users. * All package maintainers have bugzilla accounts. 1) User sends issue to mailing list. 2) First responder (any maintainer who regularly answers questions on list) finds legitimate package bug. 3) First responder opens bug, pointing to ML with any further observations, assigned to relevant package maintainer (and maybe CC's OP if necessary). 4) Package maintainer addresses issue and closes bug. Using bugzilla also allows us to see if issues aren't being handled. If a bug is opened but maintainer does not respond, then that should give us an idea that the maintainer is MIA or the package is orphaned. Another thing that I think is important is that we would have to adopt a standard for how we treat bugs. I'm not really keen on using the bug tracker as a knowledge base for end-user ssh problems. I don't think that's what a bug tracker is for. That's what a FAQ is for. Agreed, especially as most end-user ssh problems aren't bugs in ssh. And, in that line, how about per-package FAQs on the cygwin site? That might very well be helpful. Yaakov
Re: bug tracker discussion
On Fri, 2010-08-20 at 13:51 -0500, Yaakov (Cygwin/X) wrote: OTOH, I do sometimes miss things on the main list due to the signal-to-noise ratio, which I imaging would be even greater for a maintainer with only a small number of packages. So using Bugzilla internally would be helpful. IOW: * Mailing list remains support forum for users. * All package maintainers have bugzilla accounts. 1) User sends issue to mailing list. 2) First responder (any maintainer who regularly answers questions on list) finds legitimate package bug. 3) First responder opens bug, pointing to ML with any further observations, assigned to relevant package maintainer (and maybe CC's OP if necessary). 4) Package maintainer addresses issue and closes bug. Then again, does this do anything that using cygwin-apps doesn't do? I'm not sure that it does. Yaakov
