1 |
Hello |
2 |
|
3 |
This is a request for comments on a new project: |
4 |
|
5 |
http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Bug_Cleaners |
6 |
|
7 |
The Gentoo Bug Cleaners project aims to clean up the oldest bugs in |
8 |
Bugzilla. Our goal is twofold, the main purpose of this project is to |
9 |
close bugs on Bugzilla that do no longer apply due to versions and/or |
10 |
packages that are no longer present in the Portage tree; as a side |
11 |
effect, it also tries to look for solutions to the oldest bugs. |
12 |
|
13 |
For those that still have use, it attempts to inform the persons |
14 |
involved in the bug that the bug is still open if the bug is important; |
15 |
inviting them to take a decision on it. |
16 |
|
17 |
Because one cannot just rush in and go hunt at random bugs and expect |
18 |
people to agree with one's actions; the very first steps we will take |
19 |
is to raise the necessary discussion here with you to receive feedback |
20 |
on what you as the community want us to do, which clarifies the further |
21 |
limits and scope of this project. |
22 |
|
23 |
There are some questions that need further discussion: |
24 |
|
25 |
* How old is "oldest"? |
26 |
|
27 |
While we intend to work from the back of the bug queue, we might or |
28 |
might not get closer to more recent bugs; so, one would wonder if we |
29 |
need a limit on which bugs we can and can't touch. |
30 |
|
31 |
* When is a bug considered still useful? |
32 |
|
33 |
There are clear cases like a bug that's no longer reproducable and |
34 |
thus clearly doesn't apply; however, there are cases where one might |
35 |
be in doubt (eg. Do people still want it resolved? Do we still want |
36 |
to add a package that stopped its development X years ago?) that |
37 |
might not be so clear cut. I'd like to get clearer borders defined. |
38 |
|
39 |
* Are there other types of bugs we could or need to look into? |
40 |
|
41 |
We start with the oldest bugs; but the project name does not include |
42 |
"Old", are there other types of bugs you would like to see cleaned? |
43 |
|
44 |
* Do we need a mail alias so we can get assigned or CC-ed on bugs? |
45 |
|
46 |
This one gets me in doubt, the only case I can come up with is that |
47 |
being able to CC bug-cleaners@g.o allows users to effectively |
48 |
help us out as well by marking bugs they consider old. |
49 |
|
50 |
Another reason might be that we can assign related trackers to it. |
51 |
|
52 |
* Do you have any useful resources that we should be aware of? |
53 |
|
54 |
I know of the QA bug reports and the ability to search queries, are |
55 |
there any other tools already made to indicate or deal with old bugs? |
56 |
|
57 |
* Can this effort replace the Bug Day that didn't receive interest lately? |
58 |
|
59 |
At the last Bug Days, I did not see much users join us; which makes |
60 |
me wonder if that concept (still) works. Since this project does a |
61 |
very similar thing, I am wondering if we can perhaps make the Bug |
62 |
Day concept obsolete and form a more permanent effort than a monthly |
63 |
meeting; in order to allow for more effort on every single day. |
64 |
|
65 |
-- The rest of the mail shows results of cleaning, feel free to skip. -- |
66 |
|
67 |
I've walked through a few old bugs in the past as part of the Bug Day |
68 |
efforts as well as some moments outside of that, I've closed and pinged |
69 |
some bugs without any negative feedback on them which appeared to be a |
70 |
good thing; under the form of a project, I like to invite more people |
71 |
to join forces as well as do this in a more organized way to avoid |
72 |
future conflicts and get more work done. |
73 |
|
74 |
One tracker that resulted out of the above effort is: |
75 |
|
76 |
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=472746 |
77 |
|
78 |
Which covers old interesting conceptual, abstract and unimplemented |
79 |
ideas and feature requests; it gathers a lot of ideas together, let me |
80 |
list some examples: |
81 |
|
82 |
* Offload work by distributing trivial ebuild maintenance to users, |
83 |
introduce a simple stability voting system and have a core team |
84 |
approve them to the Portage tree. |
85 |
|
86 |
* (portage / gentoolkit) Show dependencies in detail; clarifying |
87 |
whether they are DEPEND, RDEPEND or PDEPEND and optional. |
88 |
|
89 |
* Implement a reverse dependency tracker using LDD information and |
90 |
compare it against the run-time dependencies listed in the ebuild. |
91 |
|
92 |
* Checkpointing and restoring packages states, e.g. `emerge undo`. |
93 |
|
94 |
* Please add GraphViz output to equery depgraph. |
95 |
|
96 |
* Automatic testing infrastructure (send build erros to Gentoo Infra) |
97 |
|
98 |
I think that if we identify more of such bugs we get together a very |
99 |
useful list for people that want to contribute to Portage to look into |
100 |
for ideas; perhaps also useful for GSoC, to be inspiring for students. |
101 |
|
102 |
Feel free to raise any other questions, comments or remarks. |
103 |
|
104 |
Thank you very much in advance. |
105 |
|
106 |
-- |
107 |
With kind regards, |
108 |
|
109 |
Tom Wijsman (TomWij) |
110 |
Gentoo Developer |
111 |
|
112 |
E-mail address : TomWij@g.o |
113 |
GPG Public Key : 6D34E57D |
114 |
GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2 ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D |