My question is essentially whether there is a choice we could make for an issue tracker now that gives us an important tool for managing existing project issues without impairing our ability to migrate the OpenOffice.org bugzilla when we are ready to do that.
I don't understand such systems well enough to make a recommendation. I am asking if anyone else has knowledge of one or more approaches that would achieve that. If not, we get to wait until the OpenOffice.org bugzilla is migrated, however that is resolved. I don't find wikis an easier alternative. If I had, I would not have raised this question. I think I was clear enough on what I consider the advantages of issue trackers. - Dennis SIDE COMMENTARY Someone suggested posting patches to the list for various things, and I was relating to that with regard to posting patches to an issue tracker where they stay visible. I don't have any patches in mind. I enter bugs in bugzilla reluctantly. I do it when I have to. Perhaps that has to do with how the bugzillas I've used are configured. My attention on LibreOffice was an accidental choice because I wanted to follow the action there at a time when I became more interested in interoperability with existing implementations and OpenOffice.org was already in some sort of doldrums. It is gratifying to get results on bugs I have reported to LibreOffice. I am able to provide support in an immediate way there, and I will continue with that satisfying activity also. When there is an Apache code base and a way to make similar contributions here, I will do that here too. I'm not waiting. -----Original Message----- From: Rob Weir [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2011 06:03 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Issues] [DISCUSS] Can we track Issues Somehow? (was RE: Speaking of JIRA, Where's Ours?) On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 11:11 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton <[email protected]> wrote: > A tracked issue keeps things in one place, it provides a record of open work > items and the actions on it are apparently posted to the list. So it is much > easier to follow the ones you care about, review them, and so on. It is also > a safer place to post patches, feature requests, and so on where they can sit > until we are actually ready to do something with them. The record of > progressing action is simply different than tracking wiki pages. > You were originally asking about issues related to migration. I don't expect that will include many patches, feature requests (at least not outside of the list discussions). If you have other issues of a more general nature, why not just stick them in the existing Bugzilla? Nothing there will be lost. It might be locked to updates for a day or two during the actual migration. But up to that point all issues entered there are slated to be eventually migrated to an Apache host. > I miss having one. We're going to need one, it would be good to figure out > how to remove the roadblock involved in worrying how to preserve the > OpenOffice.org bugzilla if possible. > That part's easy, at least conceptually. Someone steps up and volunteers. > I also have no idea how many issues we are missing from public contributors > because there is no one to place them. > Don't you think the public would be more familiar with the OOo Bugzilla tracker that has been around for years than any new, temporary issue tracker that we might set up? If you want, we could post a link to the OOo BZ from our home page, for the benefit of those who are newly involved with the project. Post-migration, the URL should be the same. > What I do instead, for specifics to the implementations, is post bugs on > LibreOffice and use their user list. > So you can do the same for OpenOffice, right? Or is there some problem I'm not seeing with this? > But we have plenty of work items around the migration here, and if we had an > issue tracker, I would hope that is more inviting for folks taking on > something they see as immediately within their grasp. > I still think for migration-related issues, the mailing list and the wiki are the best places. Adding a third place to store such information will just scatter the information more than concentrate it. If we had used an issue tracker consistently from the start it might have been different. But we didn't. > - Dennis > > -----Original Message----- > From: Rob Weir [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 18:45 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Issues] [DISCUSS] Can we track Issues Somehow? (was RE: > Speaking of JIRA, Where's Ours?) > > On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 1:27 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton > <[email protected]> wrote: >> It's been two months since the podling started and we still don't have issue >> tracking. >> >> 1. We need something for recording and tracking issues now, including ones >> that are involved in the migrations we're struggling with. >> > > Do we? I mean, do we need something more than discussing them in > clearly-labeled threads on the mailing list? Or tracking plans on the > wiki, as we are doing already? > >> 2. We don't want to foreclose how we end up finally migrating the >> OpenOffice.org bug tracker and all of the history that represents. >> >> I don't know enough to see how to have (1) and (2) both. Can we choose one >> quickly for transitional use, and then merge the OO.o bugs with it or merge >> it with the OO.o bugs, whichever works? >> >> It looks like three choices have been proposed: >> >> 1. Apache JIRA >> 2. Apache bug-tracker >> 3. Google Code issue tracker (available on Apache Extras) >> > > I started tracking some items on the wiki, as a short term approach. > Since there appears to be a great deal of enthusiasm for using the > wiki, how about start that way? If we're dealing with a dozen or 2 > issues or fewer, then setting up a JIRA or BZ issue is overkill. > Remember, we're already tracking planning activities related to the > migration on the wiki. It isn't clear that trying to tease action > items out of the plans on the wiki and then placing them in JIRA does > anything for us. > > Also, we should avoid the seductive illusion that activity is a > substitute for progress. Having volunteers move forward on the code > check-ins and on the real Bugzilla migration would be progress. > Churning on issue tracking would not. > >> I'm all for ease-of-use. How can we have a working issue tracker off of the >> critical path around migrating the OpenOffice.org bug tracker without >> getting in the way of that more complex effort? Do we have to choose one >> for the migrated bug tracking now or can we resolve that later? >> > > Easiest way to avoid the more complex effort is to use the simplest > tool that accomplishes the task. The simplest tool right now is the > mailing list. Wiki is 2nd. > >> - Dennis >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Greg Stein [mailto:[email protected]] >> Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 16:05 >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: Speaking of JIRA, Where's Ours? >> >> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 12:54, Rob Weir <[email protected]> wrote: >>> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Alexandro Colorado <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >> [ ... ] >>>> >>>> I can argually say that both suck, the issue tracker that I have seen >>>> easiest is the one provided by google code. >>>> >>>> The problem with that tracker is that I am not sure is doable for larger >>>> projects. >> >> The Chromium project uses Google Code's tracker[1]. They're over >> 88,000 bugs now and going. >> >>>> The biggest hump of using an issue tracker is locating the right people >>>> (subcomponent) to get the issue to, or asigning a developer to it. whcih >>>> most times is not aparent. The previous OOo (Collabnet) supported templates >>>> which fill out your issue tracker in order to submit the issues faster. >>>> However I found not many people really used it. >>>> >>> >>> There are two audiences (at least) for the tracker: >>> >>> 1) Project members, who know their way around, know the sub components, etc. >>> >>> 2) Users, or other who submit a defect report rarely. They need an >>> easy way to enter a bug report and check its status later. >> >> Totally agree. And that was the basis of my design for the Google Code >> tracker. I wanted it real easy for the users to submit a bug, and >> possibly attach stuff. They only need a short description, and then >> details. Users know *nothing* about subcomponents, assignees, >> milestones, whatever. The developers would then triage the new bugs >> and apply the correct tags. >> >> Jason Robbins built the tracker using those key principles, and I >> think it turned out very well. Of course, I'm biased. But still :-) >> >> If we wanted to use it, then we could fire up a project on >> apache-extras.org and use it. We can use its API to import all the old >> bugs. >> >>>... >>> And what if we didn't assign developers at all? What if instead we >>> had project volunteers claim what issues they want to work on and >>> self-assign them? >> >> I'd prefer this approach. It is generally best to view the bugs as >> owned by the community. That you don't have "one developer" assigned >> to a component. And that anybody can grab a bug and start working. >> >>>... >> >> Cheers, >> -g >> >> [1] http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/list >> >> > >
