Bugtracking system

Bugtracking system

[Andreas Kuckartz]

In response to the recent discussions on alsa-user (regarding "complaints"
about the state of ALSA) I would like to make two suggestions:

1. Decide which bugtracking system should be used.

Currently there is one for ALSA at Sourceforge (see
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=27464&atid=390601) and there is
another one at kernel.org (see http://bugzilla.kernel.org/ Choose
Category=Drivers and Component=Sound and click the search button)

As you can see there are lots of very old open entries in the Sourceforge
system. Maybe the problems have already been resolved, maybe not. If a bug
has been assigned to anyone at all then to Jaroslav Kysela ("perex").
Obviously Jaroslav will not be able to handle all these problems himself.

The kernel.org system mainly contains more recent entries (for kernel
versions 2.5 and 2.6) but also includes a small number of OSS-related
problems.

I clearly prefer Bugzilla to the sourceforge bugtracking system.

2. Add a link to the choosen bugtracking system (or - better - to a new
"bugtracking"-page on the site or the wiki) prominently to the front page of
http://alsa-project.org. Currently an inexperienced visitor has difficulties
to find the bugtracking system or might not even look for it at all if
he/she does not see it mentioned on the front page.

Cheers,
Andreas



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Re: Bugtracking system

[Dan Hollis]

On 21 Jan 2004, Andreas Kuckartz wrote:
> I clearly prefer Bugzilla to the sourceforge bugtracking system.

I can't stand bugzilla or sourceforge bugtracker.

I searched a long time for a good bugtracker, tried many different ones 
before I decided on mantis: http://mantisbt.sourceforge.net/

It's much more straightforward than bugzilla, far more powerful than 
sourceforge, much much easier to use, and very easy to install.

-Dan



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Re: Re: [Alsa-devel] Bugtracking system

[Andreas Kuckartz]

I have no doubt that Mantis is a good system and I might even concede that
it is superior to Bugzilla. But I prefer to reuse the Bugzilla system at
kernel.org for these reasons:

1. Nobody has yet volunteered to setup and maintain Mantis or Bugzilla for
ALSA purposes.

2. ALSA is closely related with the kernel (especially since version 2.6).
It therefore makes some sense to track ALSA issues together with (other)
kernel issues. This makes it easy to link to other kernel bugs or move bugs
to other Categories.

3. It is probably much easier to add a Category "Sound" to
bugzilla.kernel.org with a suitable list of Components than to create and
maintain a new Bugzilla or Mantis installation just for ALSA.

In other words: this approach enables the ALSA project to use networking
effects.

Of course this approach also has disadvantages. One of them is that the
treatment of version numbers (kernel versus ALSA) is not obvious. But I
think that this does not prevent the use of bugzilla.kernel.org for ALSA.
The Version field is configured as a free form field. Those who enter bugs
for ALSA should either enter the kernel version or a combination of kernel
version and ALSA version. The second alternative would (hopefully) be used
by those people who create their own kernels.

In case the proposal is accepted and nobody has connections to the
maintainers of kernel.org I would volunteer to ask the bugzilla.kernel.org
maintainer to add a new Category "Sound" with a small number of Components
(suggestions?).

Andreas

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan Hollis" <goemon@anime.net>
To: "Andreas Kuckartz" <A.Kuckartz@ping.de>
Cc: <alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net>; <alsa-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 11:56 AM
Subject: [Alsa-user] Re: [Alsa-devel] Bugtracking system


> On 21 Jan 2004, Andreas Kuckartz wrote:
> > I clearly prefer Bugzilla to the sourceforge bugtracking system.
>
> I can't stand bugzilla or sourceforge bugtracker.
>
> I searched a long time for a good bugtracker, tried many different ones
> before I decided on mantis: http://mantisbt.sourceforge.net/
>
> It's much more straightforward than bugzilla, far more powerful than
> sourceforge, much much easier to use, and very easy to install.
>
> -Dan



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Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Bugtracking system

[Dan Hollis]

On 21 Jan 2004, Andreas Kuckartz wrote:
> 2. ALSA is closely related with the kernel (especially since version 2.6).
> It therefore makes some sense to track ALSA issues together with (other)
> kernel issues. This makes it easy to link to other kernel bugs or move bugs
> to other Categories.

This is probably the strongest argument, the rest are rubbish imho :-)

Another possibility would be to create gateway between bugzilla and 
mantis... but that would take some coding.

-Dan



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Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Bugtracking system

[Andreas Kuckartz]

> In case the proposal is accepted and nobody has connections to the
> maintainers of kernel.org I would volunteer to ask the bugzilla.kernel.org
> maintainer to add a new Category "Sound" with a small number of Components
> (suggestions?).

I have asked the maintainer of bugzilla.kernel.org and he suggested that
ALSA could be treated as an alternate tree within their system. If there are
no counterproposals until this weekend (for example volunteers to setup and
maintain Mantis :-) I will ask him to add this to bugzilla.kernel.org:

Category: "ALSA" (or something similar such as "ALSA (Alternate Tree)" or
"Alternate Tree/ALSA")
Components: "Drivers", "Library", "Tools And Utilities", "Miscellaneous"

As far as I see it new entries should automatically be assigned to the ALSA
developer list.

Comments?/Further suggestions?

Cheers,
Andreas



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Re: Re: [Alsa-devel] Bugtracking system

[Sam Vilain]

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:32, Andreas Kuckartz wrote;

  > Comments?/Further suggestions?

What about sub-sub-categories for attaching bugs to individual
drivers?
-- 
Sam Vilain, sam@vilain.net

UNIX, n:
   Anything which is subtly incompatible with everything else claming
   to be a UNIX.



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Re: [Alsa-user] Re: Bugtracking system

[Andreas Kuckartz]

Sam Vilain wrote:

> What about sub-sub-categories for attaching bugs to individual
> drivers?

That is not supported by Bugzilla. One possibility is to remove one level
and add something like "ALSA drivers" as a second separate top-level
Category with the main drivers as individual Components. I think that can
and should be done later when the use of bugzilla.kernel.org is established.

The Bugzilla administrator probably would hesitate to do that now before it
is known that the system is really used for ALSA bugtracking. (There is not
yet a single entry for the whole current "Alternate Trees" Category ...)

Cheers,
Andreas



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Re: Bugtracking system

[Takashi Iwai]

At 21 Jan 2004 11:48:20 +0100,
Andreas Kuckartz wrote:
> 
> In response to the recent discussions on alsa-user (regarding "complaints"
> about the state of ALSA) I would like to make two suggestions:
> 
> 1. Decide which bugtracking system should be used.
> 
> Currently there is one for ALSA at Sourceforge (see
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=27464&atid=390601) and there is
> another one at kernel.org (see http://bugzilla.kernel.org/ Choose
> Category=Drivers and Component=Sound and click the search button)
> 
> As you can see there are lots of very old open entries in the Sourceforge
> system. Maybe the problems have already been resolved, maybe not. If a bug
> has been assigned to anyone at all then to Jaroslav Kysela ("perex").
> Obviously Jaroslav will not be able to handle all these problems himself.
 
obviously SF's tracking system doesn't work at all.
we need a system which can handle the detailed sections (e.g. per
driver, version, etc), such as bugzilla.

> The kernel.org system mainly contains more recent entries (for kernel
> versions 2.5 and 2.6) but also includes a small number of OSS-related
> problems.
> 
> I clearly prefer Bugzilla to the sourceforge bugtracking system.

agreed.

> 2. Add a link to the choosen bugtracking system (or - better - to a new
> "bugtracking"-page on the site or the wiki) prominently to the front page of
> http://alsa-project.org. Currently an inexperienced visitor has difficulties
> to find the bugtracking system or might not even look for it at all if
> he/she does not see it mentioned on the front page.

the only question is who adminstrates the bugzilla system on which
host.

any volunteer?


Takashi


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