Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering

Russell King
2005-03-04T11:15:55Z

On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 09:43:58PM +0100, Diego Calleja wrote:
> bugzilla.kernel.org is there but not many people look at it (which I
> understand, using bugzilla is painfull, altough basing all your
> development strategy around it _is_ rewarding, as happens in gnome/etc,
> where the release announcement includes a list bugzilla numbers which
> point to fixed bugs or "new feature" bugs in the case of new
> features).

As one of those who initially thought "great" about bugzilla for kernel
stuff, and then got rather annoyed with it, I think I can talk about
why bugzilla doesn't work for kernel developers.

* The most obvious problem is that it requires you to go to the website
before you can do anything with a bug.
* Bug reporters appear to report a bug and run away - attempting to get
more information from them sometimes resorts in silence until you
threaten to close the bug, or do close the bug.
* Bug categories aren't explained well enough to allow users to determine
the correct category. Eg, PCMCIA network card - should that be
networking or PCMCIA (where the bugzilla PCMCIA category is actually
*only* the PCMCIA core and not any of the drivers.)

Overall, my experience with the kernel bugzilla has been rather
unproductive. Most bugs which came in my direction weren't for things
I could resolve.

--
Russell King
Linux kernel 2.6 ARM Linux - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/
maintainer of: 2.6 Serial core