Xen devel - Jan 2007 - Fwd: Re: [Xen-users] bugzilla.xensource.com

maybe you can clarify this too :)

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: [Xen-users] bugzilla.xensource.com
Date: Wednesday 24 January 2007 18:08
From: "Henning Sprang" <henning_sprang@gmx.de>
To: "Daniele Palumbo" <daniele@retaggio.net>
Cc: xen-users@lists.xensource.com

On 1/24/07, Daniele Palumbo <daniele@retaggio.net>
wrote:
> is bugzilla in use or is it in attic?
Ask on -devel - people here are mostly busy getting xen releases to
work, not to coordinate development... Sometome developers look into
this list, but often dev questions aren''t answered here.

Maybe they are all busy getting Xen into mainstrem kernel before
lhype/ll (still waiting for the video of the linux.conf.au
presentation rusty held with xensource and vmware people) or writing
code for microsoft requirements to fulfill their agreements :)

Henning

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On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 10:38:33AM +0100, Daniele Palumbo wrote:
> maybe you can clarify this too :)
> 
> ----------  Forwarded Message  ----------
> 
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] bugzilla.xensource.com
> Date: Wednesday 24 January 2007 18:08
> From: "Henning Sprang" <henning_sprang@gmx.de>
> To: "Daniele Palumbo" <daniele@retaggio.net>
> Cc: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> 
> On 1/24/07, Daniele Palumbo <daniele@retaggio.net> wrote:
> > is bugzilla in use or is it in attic?
Bugzilla is still our official bug-tracking system, and it''s certainly
a
useful place to keep logs and things like that when tracking a problem.
Unfortunately, it''s full of a lot of ancient or just plain useless
reports, so
it doesn''t get checked as often as you might like.  Also, a number of
the
developers simply don''t use it, preferring to work from xen-devel.

The best thing to do is probably to file a report in Bugzilla, but also to
flag that problem on xen-devel so that we''re aware that a new report
has come
in.

Our Bugzilla has particularly suffered in the past from people filing bugs
that turn out to be errors at their end, and then not closing the bug again,
or getting the bug fixed but not marking it as so in Bugzilla.  Please make
sure that your tickets get closed properly too!

Thanks,

Ewan.

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The bugzilla is used largely for tracking issues we already know about and
are working on. It''s not triaged for new bugs as often as it ought to
be. So
if you have an issue, the right thing to do is usually to post to xen-users
or xen-devel (depending on whether it looks to be a real bug or possibly
just user error) and then let us know you are creating a bugzilla ticket if
the issue cannot quickly be resolved.

 -- Keir

On 25/1/07 9:38 am, "Daniele Palumbo" <daniele@retaggio.net>
wrote:
> maybe you can clarify this too :)
> 
> ----------  Forwarded Message  ----------
> 
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] bugzilla.xensource.com
> Date: Wednesday 24 January 2007 18:08
> From: "Henning Sprang" <henning_sprang@gmx.de>
> To: "Daniele Palumbo" <daniele@retaggio.net>
> Cc: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> 
> On 1/24/07, Daniele Palumbo <daniele@retaggio.net> wrote:
>> is bugzilla in use or is it in attic?
> 
> Ask on -devel - people here are mostly busy getting xen releases to
> work, not to coordinate development... Sometome developers look into
> this list, but often dev questions aren''t answered here.
> 
> Maybe they are all busy getting Xen into mainstrem kernel before
> lhype/ll (still waiting for the video of the linux.conf.au
> presentation rusty held with xensource and vmware people) or writing
> code for microsoft requirements to fulfill their agreements :)
> 
> Henning
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-devel mailing list
> Xen-devel@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-devel


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On Thursday 25 January 2007 11:20, Keir Fraser wrote:
> The bugzilla is used largely for tracking issues we already know about and
> are working on. It''s not triaged for new bugs as often as it ought
to be.
> So if you have an issue, the right thing to do is usually to post to
> xen-users or xen-devel (depending on whether it looks to be a real bug or
> possibly just user error) and then let us know you are creating a bugzilla
> ticket if the issue cannot quickly be resolved.
i have updated http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenFaq with "how to report
a
bug".

bye
d.

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On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 02:22:37PM +0100, Daniele Palumbo wrote:
> On Thursday 25 January 2007 11:20, Keir Fraser wrote:
> > The bugzilla is used largely for tracking issues we already know about
and
> > are working on. It''s not triaged for new bugs as often as it
ought to be.
> > So if you have an issue, the right thing to do is usually to post to
> > xen-users or xen-devel (depending on whether it looks to be a real bug
or
> > possibly just user error) and then let us know you are creating a
bugzilla
> > ticket if the issue cannot quickly be resolved.
> 
> i have updated http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenFaq with "how to
report a
> bug".
Thank you!

Ewan.

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On Thu, 25 Jan 2007, Ewan Mellor wrote:
> Bugzilla is still our official bug-tracking system, and it''s
certainly a
> useful place to keep logs and things like that when tracking a problem.
> Unfortunately, it''s full of a lot of ancient or just plain useless
reports, so
> it doesn''t get checked as often as you might like.  Also, a number
of the
> developers simply don''t use it, preferring to work from xen-devel.
Just curious - has there been any though of switching to Trac 
(http://trac.edgewall.org)?

Some nifty features of Trac:
- Integrated Wiki
- Supports Mercurial integration:
   http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracMercurial

I''ve never used it with Mercurial, but with SVN, it''s got nice
features
like letting you close/update a ticket from within a commit - IE, when you 
commit your code, you say "refs #1234" or "closes #1234",
and it will
automatically add your comments and take the action on the ticket. I''ve
switched many places who used to sparingly use Bugzilla over to Trac, and 
where Bugzilla didn''t get used very much, Trac gets used heavily.  :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
| nate carlson | natecars@natecarlson.com | http://www.natecarlson.com |
|       depriving some poor village of its idiot since 1981            |
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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On 1/25/07, Daniele Palumbo <daniele@retaggio.net>
wrote:
> On Thursday 25 January 2007 11:20, Keir Fraser wrote:
> > The bugzilla is used largely for tracking issues we already know about
and
> > are working on. It''s not triaged for new bugs as often as it
ought to be.
> > So if you have an issue, the right thing to do is usually to post to
> > xen-users or xen-devel (depending on whether it looks to be a real bug
or
> > possibly just user error) and then let us know you are creating a
bugzilla
> > ticket if the issue cannot quickly be resolved.
>
> i have updated http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenFaq with "how to
report a
> bug".
Cool.
Maybe it''s a good idea, to point to that FAQ, or just print this
information on the bugzilla frontpage - I also posted a handful of
bugs recently, without announcing them on xen-devel in addition, and I
also was thinking they will  probably be fixed in  some future
version. Now I know, without announcing them on devel there''s not much
hope, even if patches are attached...

BTW: maybe someone let the email-only communicating developers know
that there is a mailing list that sends out mails on each new bug? :)

And, one last thing: if I''d know that it''s easier to get a
bugfix in
when I send it in a specific format(maybe mercurial has a mail output,
like darcs?), I surely used that way.

Henning

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On 28/1/07 20:20, "Henning Sprang" <henning_sprang@gmx.de>
wrote:
> Maybe it''s a good idea, to point to that FAQ, or just print this
> information on the bugzilla frontpage - I also posted a handful of
> bugs recently, without announcing them on xen-devel in addition, and I
> also was thinking they will  probably be fixed in  some future
> version. Now I know, without announcing them on devel there''s not
much
> hope, even if patches are attached...
If you have bug-fixing patches you can always send them straight to
xen-devel. We''re not that fussy about format -- plain-text unified diff
format inline in the main body or as an attachment is most usual.

 -- Keir



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On Sunday 28 January 2007 21:33, Keir Fraser wrote:
> If you have bug-fixing patches you can always send them straight to
> xen-devel. We''re not that fussy about format -- plain-text unified
diff
> format inline in the main body or as an attachment is most usual.
added this too in Wiki XenFaq.

please review "how to post a patch", i said that you can *also* post
in
bugzilla, but with no guarantees. 

bye
d.

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On 1/25/07, Ewan Mellor <ewan@xensource.com>
wrote:
> Bugzilla is still our official bug-tracking system, and it''s
certainly a
> useful place to keep logs and things like that when tracking a problem.
> Unfortunately, it''s full of a lot of ancient or just plain useless
reports, so
> it doesn''t get checked as often as you might like.  Also, a number
of the
> developers simply don''t use it, preferring to work from xen-devel.
BTW, when thinking about that this morning, I realized that this is a
problematic sign:  every software developer should consider that it
might be a bad practice to try tracking issues only via email, and
refusing to use an established bug tracking system is refusing quality
management/quality control.

Sure, it needs people for managing the reports, developers fixing
reported bugs, and users/testers to enter new bug reports. If nobody
cares, the system will soon be a dump of old things fixed long ago,
and new things which nobody gonna ever care again.

The fact (as I understad the above message) that many developers don''t
read the Xen bugzilla mailing list that posts each new report, and
users are told they should therefore report bugs in two places, is a
sign that a problem is not far away.

If you need help on this, consider me volunteering, and let me know
what there is to do and with whom to coordinate. I will be able to
spend some time each week on checking and sorting and stuff.

Henning

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On 1/29/07, Daniele Palumbo <daniele@retaggio.net>
wrote:
> please review "how to post a patch", i said that you can *also*
post in
> bugzilla, but with no guarantees.
I''d recommend not to tell users bugzilla is optional! you will lose
tracking of the things very soon, and bugzilla will be a dump of old
stuff mixed with ney stuff.

Henning

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On Monday 29 January 2007 15:39, Henning Sprang wrote:
> If you need help on this, consider me volunteering, and let me know
> what there is to do and with whom to coordinate. I will be able to
> spend some time each week on checking and sorting and stuff.
me too.

bye
d.

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> Sure, it needs people for managing the reports, developers fixing
> reported bugs, and users/testers to enter new bug reports. If nobody
> cares, the system will soon be a dump of old things fixed long ago,
> and new things which nobody gonna ever care again.
> 
> The fact (as I understad the above message) that many developers
don''t
> read the Xen bugzilla mailing list that posts each new report, and
> users are told they should therefore report bugs in two places, is a
> sign that a problem is not far away.
> 
> If you need help on this, consider me volunteering, and let me know
> what there is to do and with whom to coordinate. I will be able to
> spend some time each week on checking and sorting and stuff.
Henning,

If you''re volunteering to do some cleanup and co-ordination of the
bugzilla that would be awesome! Its not a fun job, but you''d be making
a
very important contribution. You''d probably deserve a medal or
something...

I''d really like to get the bugzilla into a state where the information
it contains is up to date, the reports are detailed, and the
prioritisation is reliable. Hence, folk will find it useful as a tool.
Posting a weekly report of major open issues to xen-devel would be good
too, so we can see how we''re doing.

I''d start by looking at any issue dormant for more than three months
and
close it unless you know it still to be live.   

Best,
Ian



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On 1/30/07, Ian Pratt <m+Ian.Pratt@cl.cam.ac.uk>
wrote:
> If you''re volunteering to do some cleanup and co-ordination of the
> bugzilla that would be awesome! Its not a fun job, but you''d be
making a
> very important contribution. You''d probably deserve a medal or
> something...
Somebody has to do it - I am thankful some people get into the nifty
hardware-level details, so helping with higher level programming on
tools and with these coordination things seems a good idea that
actually might help better than only ranting about the state :)


One thing I probably can''t do what I see is currently wrong: the
"version" selection show only versions until 3.0.2. It should thought
about if there should be a selection only for each released version
plus unstable, or also for the -testing trees made availale at
xenbits.xensource.com.

Another thing I can''t do on my own is that I really think at least
some developers should read the buglist, and basically every new
feature and function should be registered at least as a wishlist bug -
also meaning, when somebody has finished a feature and commmitted it
to some public tree, he has to close the associated bug.  Ideally,
nothing should happen that isn''t registered there.

Maybe this gets a bit hard to handle as you probably have things you
want to work on without letting too many people know it so your
commercial products can surprise commercial users and competitors at
least a bit - but i think that''s how it should work in general. I also
believe you make a better reputation with creating real open software
with a real open development and high quality than focusing on
surprises :)
> I''d really like to get the bugzilla into a state where the
information
> it contains is up to date, the reports are detailed, and the
> prioritisation is reliable. Hence, folk will find it useful as a tool.
> Posting a weekly report of major open issues to xen-devel would be good
> too, so we can see how we''re doing.
>
> I''d start by looking at any issue dormant for more than three
months and
> close it unless you know it still to be live.
You suggest this should happen even without further testing?
That sounds actually really easy - there :)
Normally I''d try to be so accurate to actualy test if I can reproduce
each one before closing it.

Maybe at least major and critical ones should checked that way, and
bugs conatinaing patches should not be closed until it is known that
the patch has been applied or the bug otherwise been fixed, so no
contributions get lost.

On to work, I will start slowly these days by deeper looking into it,
getting my hands real dirty about next week when an important project
is (hopefully) finished.

@daniele: if you want to join, let''s see how we can coordinate. I
don''t mind doing it here, publicly, but for fast more direct
communication I hang around on irc (lazyb0y on freenode and oftc) and
have a jabber account - henning@jabber.ccc.de

Henning

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