bug tracker improvements

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On 09/17/04 23:14, Auke Kok wrote:
> 
> Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> 
> >http://bugs.gentoo.org/ shows a good example of a nice designed bugzilla
> >
> >><twocents>
> >>personally I think bugzilla is a piece of [4 letter word removed to 
> >>protect women and children] that is horribly overrated. Simplicity works 
> >>much better for a developersgroup which is below 15-20 developers.
> >></twocents>
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >i happen to disagree here.
> >
> 
> *BITE*
> 
> cmon you have a sysadmin that manages LUNAR LINUX and you point to 
> GHETTO's bugtracker...

actually, someone else pointed to gentoo's bug tracker...  not as an
example of why we need it, but as an example of someone who's messed with
the UI a bit to make it easier to use.

> 
> shees...
> 
> > i find bugzilla incredibly useful and easy to
> >use, both from a developer and user standpoint.  i can't really put my 
> >finger
> >on it exactly, but i don't really like how mantis handles bug status.  i 
> >also
> >don't really like the default "all bugs" look, and using a mailing list to
> >keep up with new bugs is kinda stupid, IMHO.  the bug reporter should be
> >responsible for directing the bug to the right person, by selecting the
> >component where they're seeing the bug.  if they can't identify that, a
> >designated bug triage person (i wouldn't mind doing this) gets notified, 
> >and
> >assigns the bug to the proper person.  or the default email address for the
> >triage person can be a mailing list, whatever.
> > 
> >
> including the 16! ways to compile it with USE flags right :^PPP

<sarcasm mode='light'>yah, like that's relevant</sarcasm>.  personally, i
just set up my USE flags on install and leave them as is after that.  no
tweaking necessary, unless i later realise i want support for something
unusual.

> 
> >xfce is growing in complexity, and i expect that we'll probably start to 
> >see
> >a much larger volume of bugs after our 4.2 preview release, and this 
> >probably
> >won't let up until 4.2.1, at the earliest.  i have a bad feeling that, if 
> >we
> >stick with mantis, it's going to start to get very difficult to keep up 
> >with
> >new bugs.
> > 
> >
> 
> this was my only real point. you are XFCE, not GENTOO, you have 10 
> ACTIVE DEVELOPERS, not 10.000. (plus one BOFH who refuses to follow 
> gentoo into trouble and uses his own common sense to guide him).

right, and since we _only_ have 10 active developers, we should use a bug
tracker that can do more work for us, thus freeing up time to do actual
development work.

> >i don't mind adminning a bugzilla install.  i can do all the customisation,
> >creating some simple convenince queries, etc.  from playing around with it,
> >it seems like it's come a long way from auke's bad experience with it.
> > 
> Never said that I would NOT install it for you, as a matter of fact I 
> asked you politely to go check it out and gave you an honest opinion 
> about my previous finds.

i know.  never did i imply that you never said you'd install it.  i just said
i wouldn't mind adminning it.  there's a difference.  your opinion is fine;
i respect that.  you certainly have more sysadmin experience than i do.  but
for developer productivity, my opinion is that bugzilla is a better choice.
just my opinion; everyone is free to disagree.

> >ultimately, i suppose it's up to olivier.  jasper already seems to be in
> >favor of it.  what do the others think?
> 
> I'm all for it, I sense you guys are mad enough to go on with this. if 
> Brian can handle an empty database with username and password on 
> espresso and set it up in ~kelnos/public_html/bugzilla for now we can 
> move it later to /var/www/bugs.xfce.org/ if it runs and works.

that's fine.  if you could just create a xfce_bugs database and xfce_bugs
user, and let me know what the password is, i can certainly do as you
suggest. (btw, according to the bugzilla docs, the DB user needs the following
privs: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE, LOCK TABLES,
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, DROP, REFERENCES.  The root directory of the install
will need, apache-wise:
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
Options +ExecCGI +FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride Limit
bugzilla will take care of creating .htaccess files to further lock down
the directories.)

> [ seriously now... after having moved the server and not being done with 
> it I am just not trigger happy to jump into new problems... I hope you 
> can understand this... as a matter of fact I spent about an hour a day 
> average still every day this week with migration issues ]

i understand perfectly, which is why i've offered to do the bulk of the
work.

thanks,
brian