[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]

[[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable
id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license
is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation
License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]

[[!toc]]


# Savannah Trackers, Open Issues, debbugs

There are the Savannah trackers.  Nobody really likes them.

There is a proposal to add/move to <http://debbugs.gnu.org/>.  It can be
operated by email, Debian people (developers and users) already know how to use
it.

There are the [[Open_Issues]] pages.  This is basically just free-form text
enriched by some tags for grouping, editable via the web and through Git
commit.  [[tschwinge]] added this to the set, and/but mostly is the sole user
of it, even though casually there are a few other people contributing, and
surely these pages do show up in web searches.  A more traditional system (like
the Savannah trackers or the new debbugs) do have their advantages, too, so
perhaps there's a niche for both these and the [[Open_Issues]].

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2011-08-31:

    <tschwinge> So.  Savannah trackers vs. Open Issues vs. debbugs.  Any input?
    <youpi> I like *both* open issues and debbugs
    <youpi> open issues is good for exposing things that people may encounter
      in other situations
    <youpi> while debbugs is useful to actually work on a bug
    <tschwinge> youpi: The advantage of debbugs being the email interface and
      the well-known procedure, or something else?
    <youpi> email interface, which nicely flows into a mailing list
    <youpi> the savannah bug updates suffer from the additional layout
    <tschwinge> How does one decide what to put in a debbug and what in an Open
      Issue page?
    <youpi> I'd say it's not exclusive at all
    <youpi> like, a bug on a specific case can start as debbug, and as we
      discover it's more general and will not be fixed immediately, get an open
      issue page
    <youpi> and conversely, when we know some shortcoming, start with an open
      issue, and if some bugs are submitted which are actually due to it,
      cross-link
    <tschwinge> OK.
    <youpi> (some general short coming I mean, like SIGINFO)
    <tschwinge> And we would keep the current stuff in the trackers, and let
      these ``get empty'' gradually (it'll be years...) ;-) or migrate the
      remaining issues?
    <tschwinge> What we can do is inhibiting the creation of new issues in the
      trackers.
    <youpi> I'd say move
    <youpi> else they will be forgotten
    <tschwinge> Hrm.
    <antrik> actually, I considered creating a track-like plugin for ikiwiki,
      as both the popularity of trac and the usefulness of open_issues show
      that something wiki-like is actually more useful than a rigid traditional
      bugtracker. but I'm not really willing to do the work, which is why I
      didn't propose it before :-)
    <antrik> err... trac-like
    <youpi> yes, the wiki part is really useful to keep a good summary of the
      issue
    <tschwinge> antrik: Same for me.  I always hoped that someone would do
      it...  :-)
    <antrik> hehe
    <tschwinge> antrik: But, as you surely know, this email parsing business is
      just too ugly to do realiable, etc.
    <antrik> youpi: my point is that adding a few additional bits (like a
      comfortable tagging functionality, and some mail interface) could turn
      into a full-blown tracker unifying the advantages of both... but as I
      said, I'm not really willing to do the work :-)
    <youpi> additional to open_issue you mean?
    <youpi> yes, but like you say :)
    <antrik> tschwinge: hm... seems to work well enough it debbugs
    <youpi> debbugs just piles things
    <youpi> and has a few commands
    <youpi> you'd still need the web interface to edit the wiki part for
      instance
    <antrik> of course. that wouldn't change at all
    <antrik> (except for adding a tagging GUI perhaps)
    <antrik> (debbugs of course is not the only mail-operable bugtracking
      system... there are a number of others -- and I heard rumors even
      bugzilla grew a mail interface now...)
    <youpi> antrik: a .mdwn diff should however be sent to the bug for
      information
    <youpi> atm, what happens sometimes is somebody saying something here on
      #hurd, tschwinge turning that into an open_issue, and it does not show up
      on the mailing list
    <tschwinge> debbugs surely has the advantage that it is available (nearly)
      right now.
    <mattl> RT (request tracker) and ikiwiki play quite nicely together.
    <tschwinge> mattl: You'Re using that at GNU/FSF/somewhere, right?
    <mattl> you can close tickets from the wiki, and RT has a good command line
      interface, email interface and web interface.
    <mattl> tschwinge: yeah, we use RT and ikiwiki.
    <mattl> RT for all FSF communications, and ikiwiki for internal organising.
    <mattl> RT is not the easiest thing to set up, but works pretty well once
      it's running.

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2011-10-19:

    <antrik> tschwinge: BTW, what happened to the plan of killing help-hurd?
    <antrik> (and possibly some other lists)
    <tschwinge> antrik: That plan got stalled, obviously.  ;-)
    <tschwinge> antrik: Now, I had proposed to use hurd-dev for development,
      and turn bug-hurd into a debbugs bug reportling list.  That proposal has
      not heard any supportive/unsupportive votes yet.
    <tschwinge> hurd-devel.  That's the name.
    <tschwinge> And turn off hurd-devel-readers.  And turn off help-hurd.
    <tschwinge> And web-hurd.
    <tschwinge> Keep l4-hurd.
    <antrik> yeah, I haven't replied regarding bug-hurd vs. hurd-devel, as I'm
      not quite sure myself
    <antrik> on one hand, a dedicated bug list can be convenient; on the other
      hand, this kind of splits always causes unnecessary overhead IMHO
    <antrik> also, hurd-devel would obviously be *only* for development, so in
      this scenario we actually would *need* to keep something like help-hurd
      as well...
    <antrik> I think I'd prefer the non-exclusive mode for debbugs... would
      have to check again how it works exactly though :-)
    <tschwinge> antrik: I quite liked that exclusive mode for it automatically
      archives discussions grouped by threads for easy reference.
    <tschwinge> antrik: And, the very most of bug-hurd emails are ``issues'' of
      some sort: bug report, patch (that needs to be tracked until it is
      applied, etc.
    <antrik> tschwinge: exclusive mode would just mean that people would take
      most of these discussion elsewhere, and the bug list would only be used
      when someone explicitly wants something tracked as a bug...
    <antrik> ideally, the bug tracker should only track things if explicitly
      CCed. ideally, it should be possible to forward mails that have been
      posted without CC, so they can be tracked retroactively...
    <tschwinge> antrik: Why do you think that people would take discussions
      elsewhere?
    <antrik> because most people don't consider it useful to put every random
      question or remark in an issue tracker
    <antrik> IMHO it should be easy to turn messages into tickets/followups;
      but it should not happen automatically
    <tschwinge> What if people wouldn't even notice that their issues is kept
      in a tracker, too?
    <draculus> It might send a notification of some sort?
    <antrik> I once posted to a list with RT in exclusive mode, and quite
      frankly, I considered it rather strange to get a ticket created for my
      message :-)
    <antrik> tschwinge: that would only be useful if you always close tickets
      for irrelevant or finished discussions, mark duplicates etc. -- and this
      would have to happen silently, without noise for most other people
      following the list...
    <antrik> tschwinge: are you sure you want to do that?... :-)
    <tschwinge> Yes.
    <tschwinge> Because that way we don't lose so much stuff as we currently
      do.
    <antrik> well, the decision is up to you in that case...
    <tschwinge> In fact, probably less than manually archiving the content, as
      I'm doing now, partially.
    <tschwinge> antrik: Well, I'm just out for getting some comments.
    <antrik> it would further reduce our bus factor though :-(
    <tschwinge> That already is low enough that it doesn't matter anymore...
    <tschwinge> antrik: So, to sum up, you'd use non-exclusive mode, but are
      not actively opposed to exclusive mode as long as it doesn't too much
      disturbe any procedures you're currently using?
    <antrik> well, if it happens mostly in the background, I don't see why
      anyone should be opposed...
    <antrik> just make sure people posting to the list don't get a "ticket
      created" message in response :-)
    <antrik> it would make it harder though for people to explicitly track
      issue they are interested in I fear
    <antrik> when using non-exclusive mode, and people explicitly CC things to
      the tracker, which sends a notice about a ticket being created, everyone
      sees that and can act accordingly. if everything happens in the
      background, few people would even think about it...
    <antrik> so non-exclusive mode probably needs more effort to keep in order;
      but it would be more useful too...
    <tschwinge> Well, but with exclusive mode, people don't lose anything
      compared to the current state, do they?
    <antrik> tschwinge: probably not compared to the current state... but
      possibly compared to a well-used non-exclusive mode :-)


# Further Systems

  * ikiwiki

      * <http://ikiwiki.info/tips/integrated_issue_tracking_with_ikiwiki/>

      * <http://ikiwiki.info/todo/Better_bug_tracking_support/>

      * <http://ikiwiki.info/todo/tracking_bugs_with_dependencies/>

      * <http://ikiwiki.info/todo/Updated_bug_tracking_example/>

  * <http://bugseverywhere.org/>