Re: [gentoo-dev] [POLICY] Keywording/Stabilizing Bug Assignment Policy

[Mart Raudsepp <leio@gentoo.org>]

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On Tue, 2007-04-17 at 14:56 -0400, Doug Goldstein wrote:
> I would like to take this time to note and re-affirm the proper bug
> assignment policy and have it noted somewhere officially in Gentoo Policy.
> 
> Bugs that are created for the purpose of getting arches to keyword or
> stabilize a particular package should initially be assigned to the
> herd/maintainer of said package with all requested arches being CCed.
> Once all but the last arch has keyworded said package, it is acceptable
> and proper for a bug wrangler and/or maintainer/herd to re-assign the
> bug to the last remaining arch and they remove that arch from CC. They
> should add their herd/maintainer to the CC of the bug.

This has various possible issues. Let me list some:

a) The bug moves from saved searches of "bugs assigned to my team" to
"bugs my team is CC'ed to" - two saved searches that big teams have to
differentiate bugs to their packages with bugs to someone elses packages
that are requesting comments from the team. That moving of bug to a
different list then happens through the actions of a third party

b) Similarly, then keywording/stable bugs for a team are mixed up
between "assigned directly to our team" and "our team is on the CC
list", so there is no good overview (seeing both types at once could
mean a bug list of 400, for example instead of 200 and 200)

c) Arch teams have to look at both CC and assignee lists of them to find
stabling bugs, while initial keywording bugs (by users of that arch) are
usually always assigned directly to them. Having marking stable bugs as
both assigned and CC'ed (depending on if they are last or not) means
they need to look at all at once to grasp everything. I don't know if
this is a potential problem or not as I'm not a member of any arch teams
at this point

d) (I think) The slacking arch gets a bug resolved count into GWN stats
if they close the bug with them being the assignee (due to the
reassignment as proposed) instead of the team managing that package. The
quicker arches should have that benefit if any, not the last one.

These are some of the things that bother me about this proposed policy,
as a member of a big team with hundreds of open bugs - and not
necessarily said team(s).

> Once the last remaining arch has completed the bug, it is up to them to
> close it. They know it's up to them to close it since the bug is
> assigned directly to them.

In practice the last arch in CC list already does that almost always if
there are no other raised issues on the bug, so that is not a problem.

> This helps keep bugzilla tidy and makes it easy to identify
> stabilization/keywording requests which are a priority for that arch to
> take care of.

I wouldn't automatically consider stabilization bugs that have one last
arch to do the job be more important than bugs that have multiple arches
to take care of still.
This is usually only important for cleanup of ebuilds, and that's
cosmetical, while usually perceived very bothering by the maintaining
team.

I think the idea in a subthread about special keywords for these two
types of things would be great, as then we can create saved searches
that either include only bugs with one or both of these keywords, or
that exclude bugs with any of these keywords. I'm not sure if this being
a keyword, as opposed to a different bugzilla property is the best,
though, especially when it comes to having people actually use it
consistently. Perhaps a javascript button would help then, akin to the
helper for arch CC'ing.

-- 
Mart Raudsepp
Gentoo Developer
Mail: leio@gentoo.org
Weblog: http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/leio

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