From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1030342AbXD2UOQ (ORCPT ); Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:14:16 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1031357AbXD2UOQ (ORCPT ); Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:14:16 -0400 Received: from ogre.sisk.pl ([217.79.144.158]:38599 "EHLO ogre.sisk.pl" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030342AbXD2UOO convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:14:14 -0400 From: "Rafael J. Wysocki" To: Andi Kleen Subject: Re: Linux 2.6.21 Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:18:10 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5 Cc: Linus Torvalds , Adrian Bunk , Diego Calleja , Chuck Ebbert , Linux Kernel Mailing List References: <20070426040806.GJ3468@stusta.de> <200704292050.56575.rjw@sisk.pl> <20070429191432.GA31445@one.firstfloor.org> In-Reply-To: <20070429191432.GA31445@one.firstfloor.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200704292218.11242.rjw@sisk.pl> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sunday, 29 April 2007 21:14, Andi Kleen wrote: > On Sun, Apr 29, 2007 at 08:50:55PM +0200, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote: > > On Sunday, 29 April 2007 19:37, Andi Kleen wrote: > > > > My personal experience with bugzilla is that it's very unfriendly to > > > > reporters. IMHO it's suitable for tracking unresolved problems along with > > > > debug patches, system information etc., but not for _reporting_ new ones. > > > > > > What did you find unfriendly? > > > > - You are required to select a category and 'component' for your report, which > > often is difficult (especially if you're not a kernel expert) > > Usually there is other and then someone else figures it out. > > > - You need to have a bugzilla account (or to create one, if you don't) > > - If you want to add an address to the CC list, it must be known to bugzilla > > and there's no (obvious) way to check which addresses are known (bugzilla > > rejects the report if there's a 'wrong' email address in the list) [IMO this is > > really really broken.] > > The Novell bugzilla actually has that fixed. You have a search email button > to look up addresses. Perhaps that feature will be ported someday into > the kernel.org one (I would like to have it too) > > > - You are asked to provide many details that need not be relevant and casual > > reporters don't know that they can skip this part > > - Attaching files is tedious and referring to attachments unintuitive > > Anyways that are mostly all detail (except the registration requirement) that > could be probably all easily fixed. > > > And I think they are two _totally_ conceptually different things. You report > > a bug to let somebody know that there's a problem and this doesn't necessarily > > The problem is we need a way to route those reports to the right people. > Routing it to a single person or broadcasting it just doesn't scale. > And the best way I know of is to use some database that keeps track of the state. > > That is what bugzilla is essentially. > > > For this reason there should be a simple means of filing initial bug reports > > with someone to look at them and forward them to appropriate people who will > > decide if the problem needs to be tracked. If they do, it's time to use > > bugzilla. Not earlier. > > The only sane way to do that would be to save them somewhere and keep > a list and then let a group of people process them. But emailed reports _are_ saved anyway and we _know_ how to get a copy. >>From lkml.org, for example. Why don't we use that? The only missing piece is the 'keep a list' thing, but that's not a rocket science, IMHO. [For example, you can create a bugzilla entry with a link to the lkml.org copy of the relevant message, so why to require the reporter to file the report with the bugzilla himself?] _Moreover_, some LKML archives, for example at http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel, keep track of each thread separately, so you can browse any of them at any time. In particular, you can see the _history_ of each bug report sent to LKML if you have a link to any message in its thread. Really, if we ask reporters to put '[BUG]' in the subjects of their messages, you'll even be able to use the lkml.org archives plus wget and a couple of shell scripts to cherry pick the links to all bug reports sent to the list within a given time interval. All of this functionality is out there already. > Hmm, wait... sounds like bugzilla, doesn't it? > > > You are right, email is not suitable for tracking bugs. Well, now, I think that even this statement is not exactly right. :-) > > Still, it works quite well as a means of sending initial reports. > > I disagree. It works small scale but does not really scale well. IMO that depends on how you handle it. Greetings, Rafael