Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposed Issuetracker via PEST

[Mikael Hallendal]

ons 2001-11-28 klockan 18.11 skrev Andreas Voegele:
> Mikael Hallendal writes:
>
> > As said before, this is the _default_ interface too bugzilla which
> > we have no intention of using (at least not for endusers).
>   ^^
> Has there already been a decision to use Bugzilla?

No but there has been extensive discussions about using it and those
discussions has been based on writing a our own nice interface too it.
 
> > Bugzilla is complex before it's _very_ powerful. But I agree, the
> > default interface is too complex [...]
>
> The problem is that web interfaces generally suck because of the poor
> GUI elements that HTML provides.  For example, the text entry's
> editing features are really poor compared to the features of real text
> editors.
>
> How will users select a package in the Bug Tracking System if there
> are hundreds or even thousands of packages?  Do they have to scroll
> through endless lists?

I'm not sure how we should categorize the packages. Currently I think
that bugreports should go per team (ie. if you find a bug in a package
that is maintained by Desktop team you report it as such a bug rather
than that actuall package). This fits very well into the current setup
we have in Gentoo.

If we have as in Debian (which I hope we never have) that one person
only can make changes to a package it should be reported per package.
 
> I prefer to write my reports with a text editor and to send the
> reports by electronic mail.  It's much easier to add patches and
> ebuild scripts to electronic mail than to add them to reports sent
> through a web interface - at least if you're using Emacs to write your
> mail :]

I agree that there should be a way to report bugs through email. This is
afaik possible in the bugzilla used by GNOME. Also, BugBuddy is a GNOME
application to report bugs to bugzilla, we might be able to tweek it if
we decide to use Bugzilla.

> The Debian BTS uses electronic mail.  And there are at least two
> programs, e.g. reportbug, which is written in Python, that end-users
> can use to send bug reports.

I agree with Joshua that it's very important to have a nice webui to
look at the bugs, search among them etc.
We should (imho) also be able to connect the issuetracking system to IRC
(at least for lookups) using a bot. I don't know how easy this is with
Debbug or Roundup (I guess at least Debbug has something like this?)

> > This is very true while talking about endusers. When talking about
> > developers I think the most important thing is that it can handle
> > all the things we need to work effectivly.
>
> Hm, do you think that all the developers need/want the same things?

Off course not, that's why we need something that fits all (and in my
opinion we should be able to make Bugzilla do so). If we use something
that hasn't all the features we want we will have to spend time to
implement them (This might not be a bad idea since we will be helping
another project that way).
 
> What's wrong with the Debian BTS?

I have never used it and I think most of us haven't. This is a
discussion about what to use. Nothing has been decided.

Currently we seem to be in the state where we collect information about
which ones are available. And those I can come up with right now that's
been suggested are:

* Roundup
* Bugzilla
* PEST
* Debian BTS
* GNATS
* Improve current dev-wiki

Regards,
  Mikael Hallendal

-- 

Mikael Hallendal
Gentoo Linux Developer, Desktop Team Leader
CodeFactory AB, Stockholm, Sweden