Re: [Xen-users] xen forum

[Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>]

On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 12:31:02PM -0400, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 04:04:09PM +0100, Ian Murray wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > >It would be easier for us if the bug reports and such were posted on xen-devel.
> > >Please consult http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html when
> > >doing it.
> > >
> > 
> > 
> > My own experience is that posts (at least from me) are regularly missed/ignored on the devel list, including a signed patch, so I personally think a bug tracker would be a better option. Bug trackers don't (or at least shouldn't :) ) forget or miss. That's they're raison d'etre. I honestly don't know how anyone can do business using this list, but that's just my humble opinion.
> 
> Did you also look in the MAINTAINERS file to make sure you copied the right
> maintainer?
> 
> The reason for skipping the Bugzilla system is that it is soo out of date that
> we don't use it anymore.


Actually I recall there is a secondary reason too - which is that we get copied
on distros bugs that affect Xen. For example in Fedora I (and Dariof) get copied on
any Linux kernel issues that are related to Xen. In Debian I believe Ian Campbell
gets copied as well. For SuSE it is Jan and Olaf. Not sure about the other distros.

And then if you use Oracle Linux, I get copied too. Then there is the internal bug system
if you using OVM and the Linux kernel bug-system where I get copied too.

That is a lot of bug systems to keep track of - and since most of the users use a 
distro they end up using their distro bug-system. And then Xen's bugzilla system 
became less and less important to keep track of stuff.

Oh, and there are the five mailing lists and the fire-hose LKML. Yuck, soo many emails.

Now I have to admit that everytime anybody reports an issue on xen-devel that regards
Linux I try to respond ASAP. Unfortunatly I miss it sometimes - and this Xen 4.3 release
overlapped with Linux v3.10 merge window (And my vacation) - so it was a triple whammy
when it came to keeping track of things. To keep track of things, and of all of those
different bug systems, and of what to get done for Xen or Linux I have a text file.

It is mostly FIFO with the 'oh wow, this needs to be fixed NOW!' preempting it.
In all honestly it sucks as a track system, but I am not really sure of how else to do this
without spending a massive time doing 'click here on this button and add this comment,
set dependency on this bug' and instead concentrate my time in an editor.

I believe we need something that can bridge both of these - helping developers to
know about bugs and also track them so users know that things are done and not ignored.
And so low maintaince for developers that they can focus on looking at code all day.

BTW, did I mention that Oracle is looking to hire Xen and Linux developers :-)
> > 
> > As professional developer and application support bod myself, I wouldn't ask anybody to read that missive; I wouldn't get any bug reports ever!
> > 
> > 
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> > Xen-devel@lists.xen.org
> > http://lists.xen.org/xen-devel
> > 
> 
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