Re: Planned changes for bugzilla.kernel.org to reduce the "Bugzilla blues"

Slade Watkins
2022-09-30T17:37:09Z

Artem, all,

> On Sep 30, 2022, at 12:34 PM, Artem S. Tashkinov <aros@gmx.com> wrote:
> Debian uses an email based bug tracker and you know what? Most people
> avoid it like a plague. It's a hell on earth to use. Ubunutu's Launchpad
> which looks and feels like Bugzilla is a hundred times more popular.

Yeah, Ubuntu’s Launchpad instance is definitely easier to navigate than Bugzilla and has more info at a glance (when looking at individual bug reports.) Do I necessarily think they look and feel the same? Nah. But, hey, it’s all subjective so it’s cool!

Ultimately I’m conflicted here (even my own opinions have already changed twice since I jumped in on the discussion.) Some say email is terrible, others say it’s the way they want to do it. Because that’s all subjective: that was bound to happen, of course. My take is that if the goal is to please *everyone*, we’re not going to get anywhere.

Email — imo — is good for discussions, but not for reporting bugs. Web has upsides of being easier to navigate (sometimes faster) with just a few clicks/keyboard shortcuts and some words to describe an issue, steps to reproduce, kernel versions it affects, etc.

But no matter what system (email, web, etc.) you use — there will always be things that gets lost, whether that’s because someone didn’t see something and/or it got buried by something else more urgent. Sadly, that's just going to happen, and the best thing to do is improve it so that it’s _less likely_ to do so.

-srw