From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756118AbYEVRJG (ORCPT ); Thu, 22 May 2008 13:09:06 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752589AbYEVRIy (ORCPT ); Thu, 22 May 2008 13:08:54 -0400 Received: from fg-out-1718.google.com ([72.14.220.158]:61636 "EHLO fg-out-1718.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751741AbYEVRIx (ORCPT ); Thu, 22 May 2008 13:08:53 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=WCF3ToTj/ejhgiPkiH9+b1KiJ3aVtHowgbFXN8Q23VH2gWYkAtq5U8mub8NXgCTOzcBSySAIINCOB3DzRR8PveOmvyMxZob99eBHk4E9PJmjm/VqecL576mwJmH0tcSrSoRVg5uydpbrCUlOjrj5eGWNE36xWQTpYp3FXYhx53A= Message-ID: <32209efe0805221008m1850730cxdb26d9bdeb9c43fc@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 10:08:49 -0700 From: "Natalie Protasevich" To: "Adrian Bunk" Subject: Re: Number of bugs - statistics Cc: "Arjan van de Ven" , "Bosko Radivojevic" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20080522165008.GB2727@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20080522144114.GC27301@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi> <20080522075135.4933161c@infradead.org> <20080522155425.GA2727@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi> <32209efe0805220920h1a2a0089t82b0173bbe239137@mail.gmail.com> <20080522165008.GB2727@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 9:50 AM, Adrian Bunk wrote: > On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 09:20:46AM -0700, Natalie Protasevich wrote: >> On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 8:54 AM, Adrian Bunk wrote: >> > On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 07:51:35AM -0700, Arjan van de Ven wrote: >> >> On Thu, 22 May 2008 17:41:14 +0300 >> >> Adrian Bunk wrote: >> >> >> >> > On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 02:28:17PM +0200, Bosko Radivojevic wrote: >> >> > >> >> > > Hi! >> >> > >> >> > Hi Bosko! >> >> > >> >> > > Is there any kind of analysis of number of (reported or resolved) >> >> > > bugs through time in Linux kernel floating around? I'm trying to >> >> > > convince my colleagues that newer kernel version does not mean more >> >> > > bugs than the previous 'well tested' ones. >> >> > >> >> > We definitely have many regressions (something that previously worked >> >> > does no longer work) in each kernel. >> >> >> >> ... and many of those regressions are things people are unlikely to >> >> hit. And we fix many long standing bugs as well. >> >> >> >> Maybe some other data: >> >> * The incoming rate of ACPI bugs has been pretty much flat the last 3 >> >> years, while the number of Linux (and ACPI) users has grown >> >> significantly. The number of unfixed bugs has more than halved, from >> >> over 200 to well below 100. >> >> * The SCSI maintainer also reports that he sees flat to declining bug >> >> rates; again with the increase in Linux user base that is a good sign >> > >> > Andrew sees and handles the majority of incoming bug reports. >> > Ask him whether he agress with this. >> > >> > And ALSA alone has 2000 open bug reports, which makes the open ACPI or >> > SCSI bug numbers relatively irrelevant in any "number of bugs" >> > statistics. >> > >> >> > > Any kind of (research) reports or papers that address this issue is >> >> > > more than welcome. >> >> > >> >> > Any such reports or papers would anyway be flawed since we have no >> >> > data one could use for doing serious statistics. >> >> >> >> We have data for 2.6.25 at least, on which we can and do serious >> >> statistics. >> >>... >> > >> > Where do we have data for 2.6.25 covering all kinds of bugs? >> > >> > Regressions reported before 2.6.25 and Oops'es etc. are only a small >> > part of the picture. >> >> There is no unified tracking mechanism as of now, this is a big >> problem. There are some projects that have ideas about universal bug >> tracking, for example some people from KDE team expressed their ideas, >> I'm planning to get back with them. >> It would be great if all reports from known and unknown bugzillas were >> piped into one place and sorted out, > > Not everyone uses Bugzilla (e.g. ALSA uses Mantis). > > And the majority of bug reports might still go only to mailing lists and > not into any bugtracker at all. As long as this happens the data is > simply not available. True. It was argued that mailing list is more effective that bugzilla as a collaboration mechanism while working on a bug. But if it was a way to record it into bugzilla "seemlessly" (as Andrew tried to enforce, by asking those on the list to add CC to bugme-deamon) this would be perfect. Another one to implement... > >> by various criteria: ALSA bugs >> are numerous, which is not important for most enterprise server users >> who would completely disregard this category, whereas desktop users >> will probably concentrate on those more than any other. > > The majority of machines running Linux most likely runs with ARM CPUs. > > Show me any public source you want to use for getting serious data for > this area. There is no one, except dispersed reports and ... appropriate implementation involving search engine comes to mind. > >> So the answer >> to question about kernel stability would be more adequate depending on >> who's asking. > > You must not confuse "number of reported bugs" with "kernel stability" - > these two can be quite decoupled. Number of existing, proven and prioritized bugs maybe better to say. I think there is a correlation. --Natalie > >> --Natalie > > cu > Adrian > > -- > > "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out > of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. > "Only a promise," Lao Er said. > Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed > >