linux-kernel - Re: [RFC][PATCH] Update REPORTING-BUGS

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Date:	Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:06:44 +0100
From:	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org>
To:	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...k.pl>
Cc:	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <bzolnier@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH] Update REPORTING-BUGS

On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 01:04:25AM +0100, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> On Monday, 26 of November 2007, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 12:00:28AM +0100, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > On Sunday, 25 of November 2007, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > >...
> > > > I don't care whether that's done with Bugzilla, some email based bug 
> > > > tracker like the Debian bug tracker, someone putting emails manually 
> > > > into some bug tracker like you are doing, or whatever else.
> > > 
> > > That last solution doesn't scale very well ...
> > > 
> > > How about using the system in which it's possible to report bugs using both
> > > email and a web interface?
> > > 
> > > We can request that the address of the bug tracker be added to the Cc lists of
> > > bug reports sent by email and we can make it resend reports filed with it to
> > > the appropriate mailing lists and with the appropriate email headers.  This is
> > > technically doable.
> > 
> > You are trying to solve something that is not a problem.
> 
> It _is_ a problem, because many bug are reported using email and not really
> tracked.  The ones that I manually put into the Bugzilla are the tip of the
> iceberg (and BTW I'd prefer not to have to do that manually).
> 
> Every bug reported by email and not responded to by the right people, that is
> not a recent regression, is currently lost.  I'd like to avoid that, if possible.

This is solved by many other projects by asking the submitter to open a 
bug for the issue when he sends it in an email.

The submitter then simply copies the information from his email to his 
newly opened bug in the bug tracker.

-> no problem

> > It does not matter which medium we choose for getting bug reports.
> 
> [Well, you said that we should use a web interface for that. ;-)]

I said a web interface is not worse than via email.
And it's enough.

(And I e.g. wouldn't oppose using the Debian bug tracker where the web 
 interface only allows reading and everything has to be done via email
 if all kernel maintainers would agree to use this.)

> No, it doesn't, as long as the bug reports reach the right place.  Now, the
> question is what's that.
> 
> IMO, ideally, for each subsystem there should be a mailing list to send bug
> reports to.  The Bugzilla should forward the reports to these lists.  On every
> such list there should be (at least) one person responsible for responding to
> the bug reports, if no one else responds first, and for forwarding the reports
> to the appropriate developers.  This person should also be responsible for
> monitoring the status of each bug report sent to his/her list.

After all discussions about crazy bug tracker features we are back at 
the real problem:

Where do we find the tree these people grow on?

> _Every_ bug report sent (including invalid ones) should be recorded in a bug
> tracking system (be it the Bugzilla or whatever else) along with all of it's
> history (at least, refernces to the bug's history should be stored), no matter
> how it's been handled.  Moreover, a bug can only be resolved as "fixed" if
> there's a pointer to the exact commit fixing it in the bug's history.

And back we are at crazy bug tracker features...

> > The only thing that matters is that we get bug reports resolved within a 
> > reasonable amount of time.
> 
> I'm not sure if that's generally possible:
> - What about the bugs that take 2 weeks or more to reproduce?
> - What about the bugs that we _don't_ _know_ how to fix?

We will never get 100% of all bugs fixed.

Let's get back to the fact that we have many bug reports that could be 
fixed within a reasonable amount of time but are not.

> Rafael

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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