From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758306AbYEOICh (ORCPT ); Thu, 15 May 2008 04:02:37 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1755536AbYEOICR (ORCPT ); Thu, 15 May 2008 04:02:17 -0400 Received: from fmmailgate02.web.de ([217.72.192.227]:34743 "EHLO fmmailgate02.web.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755030AbYEOICO (ORCPT ); Thu, 15 May 2008 04:02:14 -0400 Message-ID: <010801c8b661$f86e72d0$6400a8c0@bui.materna.com> From: "Roland" To: Cc: Subject: Re: Tracking and crediting bug reporters Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 10:02:07 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3138 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3198 X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX1/sm3DGqRIBECkmW/TT2WcLtAvDBgGf0uuhfqEK 8Jwwei6nv/hJbcL4VAmmPEhTC6ZJVTTRTqpOaXoBcxG53zRXC0 MeJsLX14I= Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Monday, 12 of May 2008, Jonathan Corbet wrote: > Several members of the Linux Foundation's Technical Advisory Board > recently > got together with Andrew Morton to talk about kernel quality issues. One > of the things which came out of that meeting was a desire to improve > incentives for people who report bugs. Clearly, actually fixing those > bugs > would qualify; nobody has lost sight of that. But it was suggested that > the creation and publication of statistics on bug reporting would also > help. > > One way to do this might be for Andrew (being the only one who actually > reads every message posted on the list) to keep a spreadsheet along with > everything else he does. That idea did not go over very well. > > So here's what we would like to try instead. Whenever somebody sends up a > patch fixing a reported bug, the name of the person who reported the bug > would be immortalized with this tag: > > Reported-by: A. Bug Reporter > > In particular, reporters who work with the developers toward the > resolution > of the bug should be thanked in this way. If we wanted to take things > further, perhaps we could add a Bisected-by: tag for really hard-core > helpers. > > If these tags go into the commit messages in any sort of consistent way, > it > should be possible generate the usual sort of statistics from them. I'll > then happily publicize them next to the traditional lists of people who > are > adding new bugs. The result will certainly be fame, fortune, and job > offers for the people at the top of the list. Or something like that. > > If the rest of the community is agreeable, it would be nice to make an > immediate start on this; it's not yet too late to get reasonable data for > the 2.6.26 kernel, and to have the habits well ingrained for 2.6.27. > > Thoughts? very good idea ! anyhow, i`m browsing trough bugzilla for some time and try helping where i can and there is one thing which is really noticeable: there are bugreports not being worked on systematically enough and reporters often don`t feel welcome there. i saw bug reports which didn`t get a reply for a year or so. somebody excused for "posting so much" - all he did was posting a proper description of his problem. improving of bugzilla handling would be another incentive for bug reporter, imho. someone who reports a bug there and never gets a response (not even a formal "thanks for your report....") will probably never report again. i have worked for support (software product) some time ago and i learned one thing there: there needs to be someone to keep track of the users` input and to keep track of the developers action/response. bugreporters forget about their bug if they found a workaround (buying new hardware or whatever) and developers mostly prefer working on new code rather than fixing issues. that`s not true for ever user or developer, but if you really want bugs get fixed, someone acting as a mediator is essential. . regards roland