Re: kernel.org tooling update

Jeff Johnson
2025-12-16T20:33:21Z

On 12/16/2025 8:21 AM, Lukas Wunner wrote:
> [cc += Bjorn, start of thread is here:
> https://lore.kernel.org/ksummit/20251209-roaring-hidden-alligator-068eea@lemur/
> ]
>
> On Tue, Dec 09, 2025 at 11:48:24PM -0500, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
>> ### Bugzilla
>>
>> It may be time to kill bugzilla:
>>
>> - despite periodic "we're not dead yet" emails, it doesn't appear very
>> active
>> - the upgrade path to 6.0 is broken for us due to bugzilla abandoning the
>> 5.2 development branch and continuing with 5.1
>> - question remains with what to replace bugzilla, but it's a longer
>> discussion topic that I don't want to raise here; it may be a job for
>> the bugspray bot that can extend the two-way bridge functionality to
>> multiple bug tracker frameworks
>
> The PCI subsystem relies heavily on bugzilla to track issues,
> collect dmesg/lspci output from reporters and furnish them with
> debug or test patches.
>
> The SOP when issues are reported on the mailing list without
> sufficient information is to ask the reporter to open a bugzilla
> issue and attach full dmesg and lspci -vvv output for analysis.
>
> If bugzilla is deprecated, we'll need at least a way to exchange
> files with reporters. Preferably on kernel.org infrastructure
> to be independent from 3rd parties. A way to communicate with
> reporters outside the mailing list is also useful to prevent
> spamming linux-pci@vger.kernel.org with messages relevant only
> to a single issue or system.
>
> All the information now recorded in bugzilla should continue
> to be available indefinitely so that Link: tags in commits
> continue to work. It's not uncommon to have to dig in old
> bugzilla entries in order to understand the motivation for
> a particular code section that was introduced years earlier.

At least some of the wireless maintainers also use bugzilla.
The ath11k & ath12k drivers have guidance in the wireless wiki:
https://wireless.docs.kernel.org/en/latest/en/users/drivers/ath11k/bugreport.html
https://wireless.docs.kernel.org/en/latest/en/users/drivers/ath12k/bugreport.html

So we would also want this or a similar service to be maintained.

/jeff