A plan for the kernel Bugzilla

Posted Oct 12, 2022 9:35 UTC (Wed) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359)
In reply to: A plan for the kernel Bugzilla by nim-nim
Parent article: A plan for the kernel Bugzilla

Having a place to collect these attachments is certainly a good idea.
Using that place to host the conversation about the attachments is not necessarily so good.

The place could scan attachments for particular patterns and suggest email lists that might be relevant.

If you create an "issue", upload your details, get an issue number, then send an email to $MAILLIST with [issue-42] in the subject, then all emails with that in the subject could be collected with your attachments. All that could be quite useful.

You can add anyone on a cc of your emails, new people could join the conversation easily - and that is all done via email.

Possibly the email-list-server could add the "See also: URL" to any email with an [issue-XXX] subject.

There is certainly room for useful automation. Trying to squeeze everything into a single closed-system tool is not necessary.

A plan for the kernel Bugzilla

Posted Oct 13, 2022 1:12 UTC (Thu) by jhoblitt (subscriber, #77733) [Link]

And if the system then sent the email to the list for you... You would have a modern ticketing system and this is how Jira is used at my $day_job.

A plan for the kernel Bugzilla

Posted Oct 25, 2022 7:59 UTC (Tue) by fest3er (guest, #60379) [Link]

Years ago, I reported an oddity I observed, and later reported a minor 'defect' in how the kernel handles file descriptors and suggested a way to improve certain FD 'operations'. I don't know if I could even find them any more.

There should be two places. One suitable place to keep track of bugs and a different suitable place to triage and discuss bugs.

A bug tracker should really contain only a few things, such as:
- what was reported, and who done did the reporting
- a way to initiate an email discussion
- what the problem turned out to be after triage, and its classification(s)
- what the solution was, and who solved it
- final resolution

Bug discussions should take place in email, a medium designed for conversations and discussions.

Bugs should be tracked in a proper bug tracker, that is, a system designed to facilitate managing bugs (developers are just as responsible for managing individual bugs as managers are for managing collections of bugs).

Trying to squeeze everything into a single closed-system tool is counter-productive.