Re: debbugs discussion - Was: Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 25 May 2011, Olivier Berger wrote:
> > If someone has specific feature requests of the BTS, they can be made
> > by filing wishlist bugs against bugs.debian.org or debbugs after
> > checking to make sure that the existing request doesn't already exist.
> > [If it does, feel free to add comments to the existing bug.]
> > 
> 
> Also, may I suggest that debian-debb...@lists.debian.org could also be
> used to discuss debbugs features.

Any bug report against debbugs goes to
debian-debb...@lists.debian.org. If you have a feature request, file a
bug against debbugs and the discussion will happen simultaneously in
the bug report and on the mailing list.
 

Don Armstrong

-- 
The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one
day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and
that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.
 -- Sir Karl Popper _The Logic of Scientific Discovery_ §11

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110525154623.gc4...@rzlab.ucr.edu

debbugs discussion - Was: Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Olivier Berger]

Le mardi 24 mai 2011 à 09:54 -0700, Don Armstrong a écrit :

SNIP

> 
> If someone has specific feature requests of the BTS, they can be made
> by filing wishlist bugs against bugs.debian.org or debbugs after
> checking to make sure that the existing request doesn't already exist.
> [If it does, feel free to add comments to the existing bug.]
> 

Also, may I suggest that debian-debb...@lists.debian.org could also be
used to discuss debbugs features.

Just my 2 cents,

-- 
Olivier BERGER (Debian developer)
(OpenPGP: 4096R/7C5BB6A5)
http://www.olivierberger.com/weblog/


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1306314210.4287.7.ca...@inf-8657.int-evry.fr

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Drake Wilson]

Quoth Ian Jackson , on 2011-05-24 12:34:40 
+0100:
> Apparently, if we don't want X Y Z done then we must resist an http
> interface for bug submission even if it makes it hard for reportbug to
> work correctly, because it's the thin end of a wedge.  
> 
> The fat end is a web form for users to submit bugs.

Just to link this to a Place of Community Patterns: you and some of
the others seem to be describing a PricklyHedge.

http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/PricklyHedge

> Ian.

   ---> Drake Wilson


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110524170935.GA15144@stingray.internal

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Don Armstrong]

On Tue, 24 May 2011, Patrick Strasser wrote:
> Having a big number of open bugs is uncomfortable for sure,

There are currently 72588 un-done bugs reported by 17692 different
addresses which are maintained by at most 2484 maintainers. (Probably
significantly less.)

> but I would not worry about it if most problems are cared for and a
> lot of feature requests are in the queue. Would be interesting to
> see the numbers for Debian, but I could not find a statistical
> breakdown of bug severities in Debian except for RC bugs. Perhaps
> someone has the numbers...

busoni 16:40:12 /srv/bugs.debian.org/spool$ grep wishlist index.db|wc -l
23924
busoni 16:40:24 /srv/bugs.debian.org/spool$ grep minor index.db|wc -l
8555
busoni 16:40:29 /srv/bugs.debian.org/spool$ grep normal index.db|wc -l
33425
busoni 16:40:32 /srv/bugs.debian.org/spool$ grep important index.db|wc -l
11329
busoni 16:40:37 /srv/bugs.debian.org/spool$ grep serious index.db|wc -l
2473
busoni 16:40:42 /srv/bugs.debian.org/spool$ grep critical index.db|wc -l
80
busoni 16:40:47 /srv/bugs.debian.org/spool$ grep grave index.db|wc -l
554

This all should be more easily available, but see #362457 for one of
the requests regarding it.

> Artificially throttling bug reports annoys users and makes Debian a
> worse OS. If it is hard to report bugs you will only get the reports
> of advanced users and only solve problems they can not get around -
> simple problems for basic users will persist and bug that users that
> do not have the skill to help themselves.

Advanced users report basic bugs too. [And often, they include patches
for them.]

My primary goal is keeping the quality of bug reports high (ideally
increasing their quality) while increasing the ability of individual
developers to handle and deal with bug reports. While making it easier
to report bugs is great, doing that at the expense of quality is not
something that I'm personally willing to do.

If someone has specific feature requests of the BTS, they can be made
by filing wishlist bugs against bugs.debian.org or debbugs after
checking to make sure that the existing request doesn't already exist.
[If it does, feel free to add comments to the existing bug.]


Don Armstrong

-- 
No matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this
does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
 -- Sir Karl Popper _Logic of Scientific Discovery_

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110524165433.gt30...@rzlab.ucr.edu

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Samuel Thibault]

Raphael Hertzog, le Tue 24 May 2011 18:48:07 +0200, a écrit :
> On Tue, 24 May 2011, Patrick Strasser wrote:
> > Having a big number of open bugs is uncomfortable for sure, but I would
> > not worry about it if most problems are cared for

Even in a lot of teams, problems are not cared for due to missing
workforce.

Samuel


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110524165445.gw4...@const.bordeaux.inria.fr

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Russ Allbery]

Patrick Strasser  writes:

> Developing software for a living based on a bug tracking system I know
> that dilemma. Too much bugs is not very comfortable. Bug reports are
> always of too low quality, I've seen a lot of them.

Actually, they're not always of too low quality.  Debian bugs tend to be
of considerably higher quality than I see in other projects (like Ubuntu,
for example, where the bug quality is remarkably worse).  And, like Ian, I
think some of that may have to do with Debian's bug reporting system,
although doubtless some of it has to do with the profile of the user
population of the projects.

> On the other side if bugs exists I'd want to fix them rather soon than
> later. The problems do not go away when you do not look at them.

Making it easier to submit bad bug reports means that package maintainers
have to spend more time triaging bad bug reports or ignoring bad bug
reports, which means they have less time to fix good bug reports.  Adding
more bad bug reports will actually make software in Debian worse.  It's
also demoralizing, by taking time way from something that's fun and
productive (dealing with good reports) and draining it into something
that's annoying and tedious (ignoring or triaging bad bug reports).

> If it is about quality it needs action to educate users or help them
> writing better bug reports.

Which also no one has time to do.  But it turns out that not putting up a
public web form to submit bugs is a fairly good proxy for user education.
It doesn't *fix* the problem, but it does weed out a lot of users who
don't know how to file good bug reports (and some users who do, which is
indeed a drawback).

> Having a big number of open bugs is uncomfortable for sure, but I would
> not worry about it if most problems are cared for and a lot of feature
> requests are in the queue.

This is not the case now with the bug reports we already have.  It could
not possibly be the case with even more poor-quality bug reports.

> Artificially throttling bug reports annoys users and makes Debian a
> worse OS.

I agree that it ignores users, but I'm fairly sure that at the moment it's
(minorly) contributing to making Debian a better OS.

> If it is hard to report bugs you will only get the reports of advanced
> users and only solve problems they can not get around - simple problems
> for basic users will persist and bug that users that do not have the
> skill to help themselves.

This isn't my experience.  Debian users seem to be fairly good about
reporting simple problems readily.  I make a point to try to always report
anything that I notice, personally, since I know how to write a good bug
report and can make it useful.  My impression is that lots of others who
work on Debian do the same thing.

The barrier that you're going to face in arguing that Debian should have a
more typical web method of submitting bugs is that Ubuntu, which is a very
similar project with essentially the same targets for bug reporting and
almost entirely the same bugs, did this and the result was a disaster.  So
you have to show how Debian could do this and not end up like Ubuntu.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87oc2sqbqm@windlord.stanford.edu

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Raphael Hertzog]

On Tue, 24 May 2011, Patrick Strasser wrote:
> Having a big number of open bugs is uncomfortable for sure, but I would
> not worry about it if most problems are cared for and a lot of feature
> requests are in the queue. Would be interesting to see the numbers for
> Debian, but I could not find a statistical breakdown of bug severities
> in Debian except for RC bugs. Perhaps someone has the numbers...

http://qa.debian.org/data/bts/graphs/all.png

So wishlist and minor represent 40% of the open bugs on the BTS.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer

Follow my Debian News ▶ http://RaphaelHertzog.com (English)
  ▶ http://RaphaelHertzog.fr (Français)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110524164807.gb27...@rivendell.home.ouaza.com

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Patrick Strasser]

schrieb Sune Vuorela am 2011-05-24 17:33:
> On 2011-05-24, Patrick Strasser  wrote:
>> Pros and cons for reportbug HTTP transport:
> 
> Heh. your pro's is all about the user.
> the con is all about the developer.

1) reportbug is about to enable users to help developers solve problems.
2) To quote myselv:
> That is only the case for third-party
> reporting tools, not reportbug HTTP transport.

Patrick
-- 
Engineers motto: cheap, good, fast: choose any two
Patrick Strasser 
Student of Telemati_cs_, Techn. University Graz, Austria


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/irgluo$d29$2...@dough.gmane.org

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Patrick Strasser]

schrieb Josselin Mouette am 2011-05-24 17:50:
> Le mardi 24 mai 2011 à 17:05 +0200, Patrick Strasser a écrit : 
>>> The fat end is a web form for users to submit bugs.
>>
>> Would that be so bad?
> 
> We would get more bug reports.
> 
> We already receive more bug reports than we can handle. We need less bug
> reports, but more useful ones.
> 
> Ergo, putting an entry barrier to reporting bugs is not that silly.

Developing software for a living based on a bug tracking system I know
that dilemma. Too much bugs is not very comfortable. Bug reports are
always of too low quality, I've seen a lot of them.

On the other side if bugs exists I'd want to fix them rather soon than
later. The problems do not go away when you do not look at them.

If it is about quality it needs action to educate users or help them
writing better bug reports. A good bug reporting system helps the
reporter giving information and the developer working with the reports
and solve the problems.

When it comes to the content, you can divide reports in at least feature
request and problems (to avoid the term bug). I consider feature request
or wishlist items not as burden, as long as I can sort them out to get a
clean view at the problems. I personally like feature requests as they
can give you insight in the users perspective of software, and often
enough a new idea.

Having a big number of open bugs is uncomfortable for sure, but I would
not worry about it if most problems are cared for and a lot of feature
requests are in the queue. Would be interesting to see the numbers for
Debian, but I could not find a statistical breakdown of bug severities
in Debian except for RC bugs. Perhaps someone has the numbers...

Artificially throttling bug reports annoys users and makes Debian a
worse OS. If it is hard to report bugs you will only get the reports of
advanced users and only solve problems they can not get around - simple
problems for basic users will persist and bug that users that do not
have the skill to help themselves.
Debian claims to be an universal operating system, for advanced users as
well as for users not skilled in computer technology. Raising a bug
reporting barrier discriminates non-advanced users, which is really a
bad thing - for the users and the makers of Debian.

That said, I know that bugs won't solve themselves. I'd like to help to
reduce the bug count, for example at the reportbug package.

Regards

Patrick
-- 
Engineers motto: cheap, good, fast: choose any two
Patrick Strasser 
Student of Telemati_cs_, Techn. University Graz, Austria


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ddbda82.6000...@tugraz.at

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Josselin Mouette]

Le mardi 24 mai 2011 à 17:05 +0200, Patrick Strasser a écrit : 
> > The fat end is a web form for users to submit bugs.
> 
> Would that be so bad?

We would get more bug reports.

We already receive more bug reports than we can handle. We need less bug
reports, but more useful ones.

Ergo, putting an entry barrier to reporting bugs is not that silly.

-- 
 .''`.  Josselin Mouette
: :' :
`. `'
  `-


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1306252234.3872.325.camel@pi0307572

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Sune Vuorela]

On 2011-05-24, Patrick Strasser  wrote:
> Pros and cons for reportbug HTTP transport:

Heh. your pro's is all about the user.
the con is all about the developer.

/Sune
 - who has helped many users with their issues just by the data provided
   by reportbug.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/slrnitnjur.p7v.nos...@sshway.ssh.pusling.com

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Patrick Strasser]

schrieb Ian Jackson am 2011-05-24 13:34:
> Patrick Strasser writes ("Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated"):
>> What is the advantage of having a mail-only BTS reporting mechanism?
> 
> The advantage is that no-one can make _other_ user interfaces to bug
> submission that we don't want.  (Or at least, they are deterred from
> doing so.)

Is it about control?
What prevents someone to make an additional tool to report bugs?
In the scope of packages this could for sure managed by some agreement
which tools are supported and recommend or even accepted in Debian.
In a global scope, one can now make a web tool that generates mails to
reportbug.d.o., you can do nothing about it. You could ad some mechanism
to limit bug submissions from such tools on the Debian side.
In the end the situation with some additional transport would not change
at all in this respect.

> I agree that using http as a transport for reportbug would be fine, in
> itself.   But if you read this thread you can see numerous suggestions
> that "if we had an http interface we could also do X Y Z".

Of course that suggestions would be made, and a lot of them would be not
so bad. What's the problem with good ideas?

> Apparently, if we don't want X Y Z done then we must resist an http
> interface for bug submission

I do not see that argument. There is no rule that says that implementing
a requested feature implies a obligation to implement every other
requested feature.

> even if it makes it hard for reportbug to
> work correctly, because it's the thin end of a wedge.

I try hard to read that not as
"We can't make reportbug more usefull, because that means we would end
in implementing a lot of clever things. Lets stay with an limited system
to save the trouble."

One of the greatest features of Debian is its openness for user
contribution. Reportbug should not present a intentional barrier in user
contribution.

> The fat end is a web form for users to submit bugs.

Would that be so bad?

Pros and cons for reportbug HTTP transport:
- You would not get all the meta-info you get with reportbug, like
installed package versions. That is only the case for third-party
reporting tools, not reportbug HTTP transport.
+ You would not rely on email transport alone.
+ Symmetry to the bug database web frontend.
+ HTTP transport is connection orientated, the reporter gets immediately
feedback about his/her submission.
+ No rather complex MTA setup necessary, only proxy setup possibly needed.

Regards

Patrick
-- 
Engineers motto: cheap, good, fast: choose any two
Patrick Strasser 
Student of Telemati_cs_, Techn. University Graz, Austria


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/irgheu$d1a$1...@dough.gmane.org

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Ian Jackson]

Patrick Strasser writes ("Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated"):
> What is the advantage of having a mail-only BTS reporting mechanism?

The advantage is that no-one can make _other_ user interfaces to bug
submission that we don't want.  (Or at least, they are deterred from
doing so.)

I agree that using http as a transport for reportbug would be fine, in
itself.   But if you read this thread you can see numerous suggestions
that "if we had an http interface we could also do X Y Z".

Apparently, if we don't want X Y Z done then we must resist an http
interface for bug submission even if it makes it hard for reportbug to
work correctly, because it's the thin end of a wedge.  

The fat end is a web form for users to submit bugs.

Ian.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/19931.38864.379579.84...@chiark.greenend.org.uk

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Patrick Strasser]

schrieb Pedro Larroy am 2011-05-22 22:44:
> Hi
> 
> I think expecting having a working smtp on laptops, workstations, etc,
> is unreasonable these days.
> I suggest that we can make an HTTP based bug reporting method.

>From my experience as a occasional bug reporter, some thoughts that came
to my mind:

It's easier to get the mail setup wrong than to get it right. The
current procedure assumes you have a working mail configuration at the
reporting machine. That assumption is too strong. I need to authenticate
to my mail server, and from time to time I'm in a different network that
needs a changed configuration that I have to get right before using
reportbug.

reportbug should default to the worst case, that is: "I do not have a
clue how the message will get sent to BTS, just Do The Right Thing(tm)".
If someone knows that his/her mail config is working it should be an
opt-in to use that. Sysamins or DD/DMs will likely know what to do,
others should not need to care.

Compare:
> Will reportbug often have direct Internet access? (You should answer yes to
> this question unless you know what you are doing and plan to check whether
> duplicate reports have been filed via some other channel.) [Y|n|q|?]? 

and

> Do you have a "mail transport agent" (MTA) like Exim, Postfix or SSMTP
> configured on this computer to send mail to the Internet? [Y|n|q|?]? 

This should default to No.

bug filed ;-)

If sending a report fails, the message is saved to /tmp, and no advice
is given how to send the message by other means. I'm not afraid of
sendmail-ish programs, but I guess most of the non-developer users even
don't know what it is, or what to do with the message draft.

I understand Pedro's suggestion to implement an additional transport
from bugreport to BTS. I do not see a big difference to the mail
transport system.

What is the advantage of having a mail-only BTS reporting mechanism? One
thing would be to have a quite reliably working mail adress of the
reporter. There is no difference to a HTTP base reporting system. One
can easily get the mail config wrong, intentionally or by accident. In
fact, reportbug asks you for your name and mail address. If you really
want to be shure you need a three way handshake to verify the mail
adress, either way.
One thing I can think of is spam. How is spam handled with mail
currently? What would be the difference to HTTP?

Finally, BTS has a web frontend to read bug report, which I assume is
the preferred way of access. Why prohibit this way of transport for the
other direction? It does not need to be a web frontend for reporting or
replacing reportbug as preferred way to report bugs, just HTTP transport.
No one would think if reportbug to rely on mail transport for getting
the bug list...

Regards

Patrick
-- 
Engineers motto: cheap, good, fast: choose any two
Patrick Strasser 
Student of Telemati_cs_, Techn. University Graz, Austria


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/ire3if$54t$1...@dough.gmane.org

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Timo Juhani Lindfors]

Henrique de Moraes Holschuh  writes:
> guarantee a return path for further bug processing

Bugzilla and trac do this by allowing the user to register an account
and to keep the email address associated with that account up to
date. If somebody reopens an archived bug that I've reported a year ago
they can't ask me for more information if I've changed my email address.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/84hb8lver0@sauna.l.org

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Mon, 23 May 2011, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 7:47 AM, Goswin von Brederlow  
> wrote:
> > The only advantage of this would be for systems that firewall outgoing
> > mail conections but allow http or have a http proxy but no smarthost.
> 
> There are a *lot* of ISPs that do this. My ISP does this so I have to
> send mail via SSH tunnel or webmail.

It is now a best-standard-practice for ISPs to block port 25 traffic across
home-user access network borders.  It is being done on purpose to leverage
packet-filtering hardware and the distributed architecture characteristics
of access/border network filtering (which is already there).  Its objectives
are: reduce the overhead on MTAs everywhere due to spambot connections, and
reduce the number of botnet-caused incident complaints.

Users are now supposed to use ESMTPSA over port 587 to submit email (that
would be ESMTP with TLS+SMTP AUTH) to any email provider (including his own
ISP).  Port 25 is now reserved for static MTA-MTA (i.e. MX) traffic.

>From our (Debian) PoV, whether one agrees with port-25 blocking policy or
not doesn't matter.  It is already deployed to several million users
worldwide (which likely means at least several thousand Debian users), many
of which will not configure their local MTAs to forward email, and instead
just configure their MUAs.

We have to deal with it somehow.

Anyway, on this new port 587 world, to have reportbug reliably submit BTS
email on unconfigured local networks, it would have to use ESMTPS (or
deep-inspection firewalls will kill the tcp session off) over port 587.

And the receiving gateway would have to localy validate that the destination
are acceptable addresses (@bugs.debian.org), and also validate the sending
domain (to reduce spam and guarantee a return path for further bug
processing), etc.

Whether it is easier to do that or instead switch to a https application
gateway, I don't know.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110523110124.ga10...@khazad-dum.debian.net

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Paul Wise]

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 3:24 PM, Andrew O. Shadoura  wrote:

> Easier is to write a one-liner:
>
> #!/bin/sh
> ssh your-favourite-host-with-sendmail-set-up /usr/sbin/sendmail -f \
>    y...@email.org -t "$@"
>
> and tell reportbug to use it.

Aha, thanks. I'm now using something similar to dump reportbug mail
into my (unsupported by reportbug) desktop MUA's drafts folder.

Hmm, I wonder if I can use that to launch a compose screen somehow.

-- 
bye,
pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/banlktikspefg-nzrfcswgu9fpbszthb...@mail.gmail.com

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Andrew O. Shadoura]

Hello,

On Mon, 23 May 2011 11:58:06 +1000
Russell Coker  wrote:

> I often use the -o option of reportbug and scp the file to somewhere
> I can send mail.

> It would be nice if there was a program that could take the output of 
> reportbug -o and send it via email.  Using cut/paste wastes a little
> time.

> Another option is to use ssh port redirection to tunnel SMTP over ssh.

Easier is to write a one-liner:

#!/bin/sh
ssh your-favourite-host-with-sendmail-set-up /usr/sbin/sendmail -f \
y...@email.org -t "$@"

and tell reportbug to use it.

-- 
WBR, Andrew


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Timo Juhani Lindfors]

sean finney  writes:
> HTTP would be able to provide a super-set of the features of SMTP
> submission, would not prevent SMTP submission from remaining as an option,
> and is more likely to work in diverse environments.

HTTP could also provide faster feedback on syntax errors in control
messages.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/84y61xvq8t@sauna.l.org

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[sean finney]

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 01:47:22AM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> > I suggest that we can make an HTTP based bug reporting method.
> 
> The only advantage of this would be for systems that firewall outgoing
> mail conections but allow http or have a http proxy but no smarthost.

and that's a pretty big advantage.  requiring that submissions be done
only via SMTP seems a bit silly and self-limiting if you ask me.  

HTTP would be able to provide a super-set of the features of SMTP
submission, would not prevent SMTP submission from remaining as an option,
and is more likely to work in diverse environments.


sean


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110523071056.ga17...@cobija.connexer.com

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Vincent Bernat]

OoO En ce milieu de nuit étoilée  du lundi 23 mai 2011, vers 03:42, Paul
Wise  disait :

>> The only advantage of this would be for systems that firewall outgoing
>> mail conections but allow http or have a http proxy but no smarthost.

> There are a *lot* of ISPs that do this. My ISP does this so I have to
> send mail via SSH tunnel or webmail.

Does it allow  port 587 (submission)? This becomes  common those days to
accept SMTP listening on this port.
-- 
Vincent Bernat ☯ http://www.luffy.cx

 /*
  * Hash table gook..
  */
2.4.0-test2 /usr/src/linux/fs/buffer.c


pgpF6cRgkC47k.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Russell Coker]

On Mon, 23 May 2011, Paul Wise  wrote:
> > The only advantage of this would be for systems that firewall outgoing
> > mail conections but allow http or have a http proxy but no smarthost.
> 
> There are a lot of ISPs that do this. My ISP does this so I have to
> send mail via SSH tunnel or webmail.

I often use the -o option of reportbug and scp the file to somewhere I can 
send mail.

It would be nice if there was a program that could take the output of 
reportbug -o and send it via email.  Using cut/paste wastes a little time.

Another option is to use ssh port redirection to tunnel SMTP over ssh.

-- 
My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Bloghttp://doc.coker.com.au/


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201105231158.07240.russ...@coker.com.au

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Paul Wise]

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 7:47 AM, Goswin von Brederlow  wrote:

> The only advantage of this would be for systems that firewall outgoing
> mail conections but allow http or have a http proxy but no smarthost.

There are a *lot* of ISPs that do this. My ISP does this so I have to
send mail via SSH tunnel or webmail.

-- 
bye,
pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/BANLkTinS=usarqetd0sr33ccqgfxzuy...@mail.gmail.com

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Goswin von Brederlow]

Pedro Larroy  writes:

> Hi
>
> I think expecting having a working smtp on laptops, workstations, etc,
> is unreasonable these days.

And you don't. See docs or other mails.

> I suggest that we can make an HTTP based bug reporting method.

The only advantage of this would be for systems that firewall outgoing
mail conections but allow http or have a http proxy but no smarthost.

MfG
Goswin


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87fwo6uwl1.fsf@frosties.localnet

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Fernando Lemos]

On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 6:25 PM, Didier Raboud  wrote:
>> I think expecting having a working smtp on laptops, workstations, etc,
>> is unreasonable these days.
>> I suggest that we can make an HTTP based bug reporting method.
>
> While I disagree with your appreciation, I am sure that it would be
> technically feasible to code and deploy an HTTP-to-Debian-BTS gateway (some
> things have to be DoneRight™, but it's doable).

This has been discussed over and over. I suggest that anyone
interested Google for the last thread on the matter and don't bring it
up again unless something changed since then.

Regards,


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/BANLkTi=n7=J=F_Pb6MvVmAe=md+cmsp...@mail.gmail.com

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Didier Raboud]

Pedro Larroy wrote:

> I think expecting having a working smtp on laptops, workstations, etc,
> is unreasonable these days.
> I suggest that we can make an HTTP based bug reporting method.

While I disagree with your appreciation, I am sure that it would be 
technically feasible to code and deploy an HTTP-to-Debian-BTS gateway (some 
things have to be DoneRight™, but it's doable).

IMHO, there is certainly no consensus around dropping the currently working 
BTS email interface, so the gateway is the only possible option, on which 
one can start working on right now.

So in short: "Show us the code !" :-)

Cheers, 

OdyX


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/irbuvh$9qq$1...@dough.gmane.org

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Jon Dowland]

On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 09:11:42PM +, brian m. carlson wrote:
> > I suggest that we can make an HTTP based bug reporting method.
> 
> I think that's a terrible idea.  I do not want to constantly check a
> website to see if I have new messages.  Using an email-based method
> means that someone who needs to contact me about the status of a bug can
> do so trivially.

I'm not sure the OP was necessarily suggesting an HTTP-*only* system, but that
the addition of an HTTP-based system would be valuable.  Most of the other ones
that F/OSS project use (bugzilla, launchpad) have HTTP and email support, in
one direction or another.

> Besides the fact that *I* think it's a bad idea, apparently the BTS
> administrators do, too: #277744 is marked wontfix.

Or at least Don did, 5 years ago.

I've often wondered whether that procluded third parties from developing a
web-based submission front-end, and pointing e.g. reportbug.debian.net at it.


-- 
Jon Dowland


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110522212437.ga11...@deckard.alcopop.org

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[brian m. carlson]

On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 10:44:35PM +0200, Pedro Larroy wrote:
> I think expecting having a working smtp on laptops, workstations, etc,
> is unreasonable these days.

You don't have to have an MTA installed.  You just have to have some MUA
capable of accepting a premade message that can be edited by the user.
I don't have a working MTA on my laptop (nor do I want one), but I
report lots of bugs using mutt.

> I suggest that we can make an HTTP based bug reporting method.

I think that's a terrible idea.  I do not want to constantly check a
website to see if I have new messages.  Using an email-based method
means that someone who needs to contact me about the status of a bug can
do so trivially.

Besides the fact that *I* think it's a bad idea, apparently the BTS
administrators do, too: #277744 is marked wontfix.

-- 
brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US
+1 832 623 2791 | http://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only
OpenPGP: RSA v4 4096b: 88AC E9B2 9196 305B A994 7552 F1BA 225C 0223 B187


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Arno Töll]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Hi Pedro,

On 22.05.2011 22:44, Pedro Larroy wrote:
> I think expecting having a working smtp on laptops, workstations, etc,
> is unreasonable these days.
> I suggest that we can make an HTTP based bug reporting method.

reportbug is able to use (and will, if you tell it to do) a Debian SMTP
if you chose not to use your own SMTP.

Excerpt from the --configure output:


Do you have a "mail transport agent" (MTA) like Exim, Postfix or SSMTP
configured on this computer to send mail to the Internet? [Y|n|q|?]? n

Please enter the name of your SMTP host. Usually it's called something
like "mail.example.org" or "smtp.example.org". If you need to use a
different port than default, use the : alternative format.
Just press ENTER if you don't have one or don't know, and so a Debian
^
SMTP host will be used.
^^


- -- 
with kind regards,
Arno Töll
IRC: daemonkeeper on Freenode/OFTC
GnuPG Key-ID: 0x9D80F36D
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
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=fuZu
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4dd97a6a.2090...@toell.net

bug reporting workflow is outdated

[Pedro Larroy]

Hi

I think expecting having a working smtp on laptops, workstations, etc,
is unreasonable these days.
I suggest that we can make an HTTP based bug reporting method.


Regards.
-- 
Pedro Larroy Tovar   |    http://pedro.larroy.com/


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: 
http://lists.debian.org/BANLkTi=fgsbvxg7adbthc_3l+mou0km...@mail.gmail.com