Bug tracking

Bug tracking

[Simon Glass]

Hi,

What do people think of setting up a bug tracker on gitlab.com or
github.com? They both allow anyone to register and thus file bugs.

Another option is to use source.denx.de but that would require
allowing anyone to register so is probably a non-starter.

For guthub one advantage is that we always have a mirror there. For
gitlab we might be able to ask nicely and get the URL.

Regards,
Simon

Bug tracking

[Heinrich Schuchardt]

On 3/24/21 11:14 PM, Simon Glass wrote:
> Hi,
>
> What do people think of setting up a bug tracker on gitlab.com or
> github.com? They both allow anyone to register and thus file bugs.
>
> Another option is to use source.denx.de but that would require
> allowing anyone to register so is probably a non-starter.
>
> For guthub one advantage is that we always have a mirror there. For
> gitlab we might be able to ask nicely and get the URL.

I would prefer Github.

Best regards

Heinrich

Bug tracking

[Jagan Teki]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 3:44 AM Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> What do people think of setting up a bug tracker on gitlab.com or
> github.com? They both allow anyone to register and thus file bugs.
>
> Another option is to use source.denx.de but that would require
> allowing anyone to register so is probably a non-starter.
>
> For guthub one advantage is that we always have a mirror there. For
> gitlab we might be able to ask nicely and get the URL.

If there is any correlation between CI and Bug tracking, I would
prefer Gitlab since most of them are using CI already.

Jagan.

Bug tracking

[Pratyush Yadav]

On 25/03/21 11:14AM, Simon Glass wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> What do people think of setting up a bug tracker on gitlab.com or
> github.com? They both allow anyone to register and thus file bugs.

You would need people to maintain the bugs that are reported in the 
tracker. Asking for clear, reproducible info, closing duplicates or old 
bugs, etc. Then you need people dedicated to fixing those bugs. Sure, 
some can be taken up by subsystem maintainers or active devs, but what 
to do with the ones that aren't?

My point is, having a bug tracker needs volunteers to help maintain it. 
Otherwise it would not be very useful and important bugs would get 
drowned in the noise or be left stale. We can experiment with it but we 
need to keep in mind the extra effort required.

> 
> Another option is to use source.denx.de but that would require
> allowing anyone to register so is probably a non-starter.

Honestly, source.denx.de makes the most sense to me. I would expect the 
Gitlab instance where the repo is hosted to also be where the bug 
tracker is hosted. Makes it much easier to find.

But if allowing anyone to register is a no-go, then I would prefer 
something decentralized/non-proprietary to keep the project independent 
of the host. But people generally aren't very enthusiastic about those 
because the proprietary solutions are just so easy to use...

> 
> For guthub one advantage is that we always have a mirror there. For
> gitlab we might be able to ask nicely and get the URL.
> 
> Regards,
> Simon

-- 
Regards,
Pratyush Yadav
Texas Instruments Inc.

Bug tracking

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Pratyush,

In message <20210325193843.qniaryw2xxgkzqjf@ti.com> you wrote:
>
> You would need people to maintain the bugs that are reported in the 
> tracker. Asking for clear, reproducible info, closing duplicates or old 
> bugs, etc. Then you need people dedicated to fixing those bugs. Sure, 
> some can be taken up by subsystem maintainers or active devs, but what 
> to do with the ones that aren't?
>
> My point is, having a bug tracker needs volunteers to help maintain it. 
> Otherwise it would not be very useful and important bugs would get 
> drowned in the noise or be left stale. We can experiment with it but we 
> need to keep in mind the extra effort required.

I think it is worth to start such an experiment.  Eventually there
are people out there who don;t have experience, time and resources
for bigger development tasks, but who might help out with smaller
tasks like bug fixing.

> > Another option is to use source.denx.de but that would require
> > allowing anyone to register so is probably a non-starter.
>
> Honestly, source.denx.de makes the most sense to me. I would expect the 
> Gitlab instance where the repo is hosted to also be where the bug 
> tracker is hosted. Makes it much easier to find.

I fully agree here; this is also my suggestion.

> But if allowing anyone to register is a no-go, then I would prefer 
> something decentralized/non-proprietary to keep the project independent 
> of the host. But people generally aren't very enthusiastic about those 
> because the proprietary solutions are just so easy to use...

It is not a strict no-go, but we will have to think about some form
of rate limiting - either in form of approvals (which would add to
our work load) or allowing only OAUTH logins from other platforms as
it's done for example here [1].

[1]  https://gitlab.gnome.org/users/sign_in

And we should make sure that only bugs against mainline versions can
be reported - it makes no sense to collect bug information for
out-of-tree code where we might not even have access to.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,      Managing Director: Wolfgang Denk
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those
who are prepared.                                     - Louis Pasteur