Re: Migrating to the gitlab issue tracker

["Daniel P. Berrangé" <berrange@redhat.com>]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 04:27:44PM -0400, John Snow wrote:
> On 10/29/20 3:55 PM, Thomas Huth wrote:
> > On 29/10/2020 18.12, John Snow wrote:
> > > On 10/29/20 12:49 PM, Alistair Francis wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 9:41 AM Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com> wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > On Thu, 29 Oct 2020 12:01:27 -0400
> > > > > John Snow <jsnow@redhat.com> wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > > If you're in the CC list, it's because you are listed in MAINTAINERS.
> > > > > 
> > > > > <cleared the cc: list except for qemu-devel :)>
> > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Paolo's QEMU keynote this morning mentioned the possible use of the
> > > > > > Gitlab issue tracker instead of using Launchpad.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I'm quite fond of the gitlab issue tracker, I think it works quite well
> > > > > > and it has pretty good and uncomplicated API access to it in order to
> > > > > > customize your workflow if you'd really like to.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > In experimenting with my mirror on gitlab though, I was unable to find a
> > > > > > way to configure it to send issue tracker notifications to the email
> > > > > > list. A move to gitlab would likely mean, then:
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > 1. The cessation of (automatic) issue tracker mails to the list
> > > > > > 2. The loss of the ability to update the issue tracker by replying to
> > > > > > said emails
> > > > > > 3. Anyone listed in MAINTAINERS would be expected to have a gitlab
> > > > > > account in order to interact with the issue tracker.
> > > > > 
> > > > > The gitlab issue tracker is almost certainly is an improvement over
> > > > > launchpad (and I do have a gitlab account); but not being able to
> > > > > interact via email is at least annoying. I expect that not only
> > > > > maintainers will want to interact with bug reports?
> > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > However, once you have a gitlab account, you DO gain the ability to
> > > > > > receive emails for issues; possibly only those tagged with labels that
> > > > > > you cared about -- giving a nice filtering mechanism to receive only
> > > > > > bugs you care about.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Gitlab also does support individual accounts updating issues using a
> > > > > > generated personalized email address, so if the email workflow is
> > > > > > crucial to you, it is still available.
> > > > > 
> > > > > You mean that I can update via email, provided it's an address
> > > > > associated with my account?
> > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I'm for it, or at least for beginning a pilot program where we
> > > > > > experiment with the idea for interested parties. I wanted to send up a
> > > > > > trial balloon to see how we were feeling about this.
> > > > 
> > > > I'm not sure if you want Acks, but it sounds good to me.
> > > > 
> > > > Alistair
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Mostly I was looking for any hard objections over the idea of issues not
> > > necessarily being sent to the list anymore, if there were any.
> > > 
> > > I want to hear from Thomas Huth too, but maybe we can work out a pilot
> > > migration and give it a test-run and find more concrete objections that way.
> > 
> > I'd certainly give it a try! Launchpad is IMHO really a pain (let me know if
> > I should elaborate on that topic again...), and the email bridge is often
> > also not working correctly (replies to bug mails sometimes get put into the
> > bug tracker, sometimes not), so this is not something I would really miss
> > when we quite Launchpad.
> > 
> > So could somebody please enable the issue tracker there, so we can give it a
> > try? Phil? Alex? Stefan? ...?
> > 
> > If it works well, I can certainly help to get the links etc. in our website
> > fixed.
> > 
> 
> Great! You are the primary bug wrangler, so if you are interested in
> trialing it, I am interested in helping!
> 
> If we enable the bug tracker, can we please add Thomas and myself as
> 'Reporter' level contributors to QEMU so we can wrangle bugs?
> 
> Info on permissions: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/permissions.html
> 
> There's also an old bug (2 years) about migrating Launchpad to Gitlab, but
> there's been no movement.
> 
> https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/22600
> 
> If we like the results of the trial, we'll need a convincing migration
> strategy.

My convincing strategy is "do nothing" :-)

Most importantly we need to be able to make the existing "QEMU" component
in launch read-only to prevent people filing new bugs there, ideally with
a change in the description to point people to the new bug tracker.

We can leave existing bugs in LP to continue their discussion. If there
are some we explicitly want in gitlab manually re-file them. Aside from
that if we periodically auto-close any stale bugs, after a while we'll
have culled launchpad down to zero.

Regards,
Daniel
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