Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Squashing bugs!

[Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>]

On Mon, Jun 03, 2019 at 11:25:51AM -0600, Shuah Khan wrote:
>On 6/2/19 12:09 PM, Sasha Levin wrote:
>>On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 08:01:15AM -0400, Laura Abbott wrote:
>>>On 5/30/19 7:30 PM, Shuah Khan wrote:
>>>>I would like to propose a topic to discuss ideas to keep up with Syzbot
>>>>bugs on an ongoing basis. Good news is, as of this writing, we have 1276
>>>>fixed, 86 in moderation, and 62 fix pending. However, there are 523 open
>>>>bugs. A good number of them have been open for longer than 300 days.
>>>>
>>>>The oldest one has been open for 537 days. I plan to take a closer at
>>>>the open bugs to identify areas that might need more help.
>>>>
>>>>I have been sending fixes to some of them as I find time like many other
>>>>developers. In addition, I included syzbot bug analysis as a required
>>>>contribution in the Linux Kernel Mentorship Program application process.
>>>>This is for learning debugging skills as well as getting help towards
>>>>fixing bugs. It has been successful in getting a few fixes in. My goal
>>>>is  to make these efforts a bit more structured to focus on areas that
>>>>need help.
>>>>
>>>>There are some challenges, the obvious ones being finding time to
>>>>analyze, reproduce, and fix. Reproducers are available in many cases,
>>>>and these bugs can be reproduced. Identifying the right fix and fixing
>>>>is the overwhelming part with the number of outstanding problems.
>>>>
>>>>My objective for this topic is to explore and identify areas that might
>>>>need help in analyzing and fixing bugs in general and especially the
>>>>ones that have been open for a while. It would help me channel and focus
>>>>the Mentorship Program efforts and my efforts to help the areas in need.
>>>>
>>>>thanks,
>>>>-- Shuah
>>>
>>>I'm interested in this topic for not just syzbot but other bug trackers
>>>as well. Fedora gets a steady flow of bugs filed and the three official
>>>maintainers do their best to review but sometimes things slip through,
>>>especially if we hit a time when several of us are out or traveling.
>>>The kernel.org bugzilla also gets a number of bug reports that sometimes
>>>get lost. I'd love to see if there's a process that could work for syzbot
>>>and other high volume kernel trackers.
>>
>>Maybe the solution here is to standardize bug reporting bots? A
>>bugs@kernel.org mailing list which our various bots could report to with
>>a standard format that'll allow users/maintainers to easily filter it to
>>get only bugs they care about?
>>
>
>Easy to filter and manage is important for usability. I mentioned in my
>response Kees that I am finding it hard to update syzbot bug status to
>mark them as duplicate and/or fixed. The email interface is nice for
>individual bugs, but not very easy when it comes to other actions.

Sure, there are quite a few drawbacks to the mailing-list-as-bugtracker
approach, but I feel that we need to start with something and either
build on top of that or replace it in the future with something better.

I don't think that there's a bugtracker in existence today that would be
perfect for our "weird" usecase.

--
Thanks,
Sasha