The Teal Squad is working on target pickers. <http://people.canonical.com/~curtis/target-picker/target-picker-0.html <http://people.canonical.com/%7Ecurtis/target-picker/target-picker-0.html>> They will contain a projects, distributions, and distribution source packages (DSPs). We want to show rich information about choices so that the user is confident about the choice.
This is a long email. If you have knowledge of packages, source package branches, and distros, please attempt to reply. The vocabulary that powers the picker would search for valid projects, distros, or DSPs. In the case of project and distro, valid usually means the thing is active and uses Lp to manage the artefact that is being changed. It is wrong to retarget a bug to a deactivated project or a distro that does not use Lp to manage bugs. DSPs are harder because Lp does not store the information is a single place. Validity is often inferred, and it is expensive to learn. Two critical bugs are caused by the checks for validity <https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/618366> <https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/736014> A DSP is a valid choice if: * The source was published by the distro. Once published, it is forever a valid choice. <https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mysql> <https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/devicekit> (still published) <https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/devicekit> (deleted, yet still valid) * There is a branch. <https://code.launchpad.net/principia/+source/mysql> ? If I delete a branch that other user may have copies of, is the DSP still valid? Packages that were never published nor had a branch are not valid. <https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/epsoneplijs> Was never published in Ubuntu. It was never published in any debian-based distro. No distro has a branch for it. It is invalid. The current test vocabulary ignores branches. It is fatally flawed. Though there is work going on to demoralise the data to make the DSP queries fast, I doubt the vocab is a viable path to reach the goal shown in the demo. We need to search pillars, packages and branches quickly. The rules imply that once a DSP determined to be valid, it is always valid, Lp needs to recheck invalid DSPs that may have been added. I believe we need a resource that represents every DSP that is a valid choice. Lp does have a DSP table, and parts of Lp does treat it as a definitive resource, but it is flawed as William Grant pointed out. The table has two purposes, Store DSP information that is beyond the package and branch, like bug supervisor or bug reporting guidelines. It also stores facts like PO message count and bug heat. We want this data for every valid DSP, but not every DSP is in the table, and there are more than a thousand impossible DSPs in the table. In the case if impossible DSPs in the table, they are mostly historic entries created by users to targeted a bug to a distro that does not use Lp to manage bugs. There is only one bad entry for Ubuntu, there are many for Debian that need investigation. There are about 1000 rows for distros that never used Lp to track bugs, do not have publishing history, do not have branches. There are two reason for missing rows. Changes were made in the last year or two to ensure that every uploaded source package has a DSP entry. Packages that were in older Ubuntu releases are not present. I image we could make the missing DSP rows by mining the source package publishing history table. We have no mechanism to ensure that source package branches are represented in the DSP table. Maybe the branch scanner could do this. Principia, a distro with just branches does have rows in the DSP table for the packages the owners have configured or have bugs. Most are not represented, so bugs cannot be retargeted to them. How do we ensure that source package branches are in the table? <https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/devicekit>-- __C U R T I S C. H O V E Y___________ No matter where you go...there you are. _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~launchpad-dev Post to : launchpad-dev@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~launchpad-dev More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
