From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757085AbYELR2E (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 May 2008 13:28:04 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753765AbYELR1x (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 May 2008 13:27:53 -0400 Received: from vena.lwn.net ([206.168.112.25]:35506 "EHLO vena.lwn.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750941AbYELR1w (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 May 2008 13:27:52 -0400 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Tracking and crediting bug reporters From: Jonathan Corbet Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 11:27:52 -0600 Message-ID: <4388.1210613272@vena.lwn.net> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org 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? jon