Bug tracker [LWN.net]

Bug tracker

Posted Oct 5, 2006 15:07 UTC (Thu) by cventers (subscriber, #31465)
Parent article: A look at OpenID

A project I really wanted to do but unfortunately haven't found the time
is a new (better) bug tracker with a P2P backbone. Imagine a user filing
a bug in the Red Hat bug tracker with their OpenID. Red Hat determines it
is a kernel bug, so they use their peer relationship with kernel.org to
push the bug to kernel.org. The Red Hat tracker's interface for that bug
becomes read-only (but updated whenever the bug is updated on kernel.org)
and then any Red Hat participants are invited to the bug's page on
kernel.org to participate using the same OpenID.

You get the benefit of better collaboration and lower barrier to entry.
And speaking as someone who writes code for fun and for a living,
lowering the barrier to entry for users to file bugs is important,
because even I have to be really annoyed before I file sometimes!

(Log in to post comments)

Bug tracker

Posted Oct 5, 2006 18:57 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

I had thought that Launchpad intended to be this: a great, decentralised P2P bug network. Projects everywhere would run their own copy of Launchpad and the days of manually chasing bugs upstream and downstream would be over! Talk about progress!

Alas, Launchpad is still totally proprietary, will continue to be proprietary, and Canonical is trying to convince people to just host their own projects on Canonical servers. Blah.

I still use Ubuntu even though Launchpad has been a bitter disappointment and Canonical the company doesn't appear to believe in open source methodologies. I'm conflicted. It's a shame Ubuntu works so well. :)

Bug tracker

Posted Nov 16, 2006 16:01 UTC (Thu) by nealmcb (subscriber, #20740) [Link]

From https://launchpad.net/faq

Our goal is to release all of Launchpad as free software, though it will take some time (potentially, years) before that happens.

We are doing so in a piecemeal approach. Parts of Launchpad have already been released as free software where they would be particularly useful to other projects.

Bug tracker

Posted Nov 16, 2006 19:37 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

But why? Perhaps LaunchPad contains intellectual property owned by other companies? Maybe the FCC prevents it due to regulatory issues? Maybe they need to cleanse it of swear words? (are there any other general-purpose excuses used by companies who claim to want to release code but do not?)

Canonical, if you want to release it, then just release it! Uncommented source drops are fine. Closed-door, XGL-style "because we know what's best for you" development is a bad idea but that's OK too as long as you're honest about it. This, "we want to, believe us!" lip service just doesn't make any sense.

Besides, could additional hackers possibly make LaunchPad any MORE confusing to use? :-)