[llvm-dev] RFC: Switching from Bugzilla to Github Issues [UPDATED]

Tom Stellard via llvm-dev
2020-04-20T19:30:38Z

Hi,

I wanted to continue discussing the plan to migrate from Bugzilla to Github.
It was suggested that I start a new thread and give a summary of the proposal
and what has changed since it was originally proposed in October.

== Here is the original proposal:

http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2019-October/136162.html

== What has changed:

* You will be able to subscribe to notifications for a specific issue
  labels.  We have a proof of concept notification system using github actions
  that will be used for this.

* Emails will be sent to llvm-bugs when issues are opened or closed.

* We have the initial list of labels:
https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/labels

== Remaining issue:

* There is one remaining issue that I don't feel we have consensus on,
and that is what to do with bugs in the existing bugzilla.  Here are some
options
that we have discussed:

1. Switch to GitHub issues for new bugs only.  Bugs filed in bugzilla that are
still active will be updated there until they are closed.  This means that over
time the number of active bugs in bugzilla will slowly decrease as bugs are
closed
out.  Then at some point in the future, all of the bugs from bugzilla will be
archived
into their own GitHub repository that is separate from the llvm-project repo.

2. Same as 1, but also create a migration script that would allow anyone to
manually migrate an active bug from bugzilla to a GitHub issue in the
llvm-project
repo.  The intention with this script is that it would be used to migrate
high-traffic
or important bugs from bugzilla to GitHub to help increase the visibility of the
bug.
This would not be used for mass migration of all the bugs.

3. Do a mass bug migration from bugzilla to GitHub and enable GitHub issues at
the same time.
Closed or inactive bugs would be archived into their own GitHub repository, and
active bugs
would be migrated to the llvm-project repo.


The key difference between proposal 1,2 and 3, is when bugs will be archived
from bugzilla
to GitHub.  Delaying the archiving of bugs (proposals 1 and 2) means that we can
migrate
to GitHub issues sooner (within 1-2 weeks), whereas trying to archive bugs
during the
transition (proposal 3) will delay the transition for a while (likely several
months)
while we evaluate the various solutions for moving bugs from bugzilla to GitHub.


The original proposal was to do 1 or 2, however there were some concerns raised
on the list
that having 2 different places to search for bugs for some period of time would
be very inconvenient.  So, I would like to restart this discussion and hopefully
we can
come to some kind of conclusion about the best way forward.

Thanks,
Tom