[gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Bug voting

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Ciaran McCreesh posted <20040730034129.69c54140@snowdrop.home>, excerpted
below,  on Fri, 30 Jul 2004 03:41:29 +0100:

> On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 13:50:58 -0400 Dylan Carlson <absinthe@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> | On Thursday 29 July 2004 11:14 am, Duncan wrote:
> | > Anyway, Gentoo does great documentation, and with the bug entry
> | > wizard, the bugzilla interface is at least semi-usable, but Gentoo
> | > bugzilla is still by far the worst aspect of Gentoo Linux I've yet
> | > come across.
> | 
> | Well, the query screen is powerful, and as a consequence, it's ugly.  
> 
> It is? Actually, I'd say that the query is utterly crippled, since
> there's no way to search for all bugs on a particular package.

Exactly my point.

As I said earlier, component should be the particular package, complete
with drop-down list preventing user error on such an important field.  The
summary should be a summary of the problem and not need the package name
or version.

What to do with stuff that doesn't fit that mold, then, in the broader
categories we presently put in product and component?

To some extent, they could be made other choices even if the meta-level
isn't quite the same.

The other way to handle it would be to create multiple bugzillas.  Instead
of simply bugs.gentoo.org, there'd be linux.bugs.gentoo.org to handle the
mainline/traditional software product bugs, and other subdomains as
appropriate for the current top-level "products", therefore
admin.bugs.gentoo.org, recruitment.bugs.gentoo.org, etc.

One advantage of that would be that the bugzilla front-end and database
could be used, without shoehorning everything entered there into being
described as a "bug". Thus, altho I'm not sure exactly what is
tracked by the other categories, rather than admin.bugs.gentoo.org, it
could be called something like admin-tracker.gentoo.org, or
admin-db.gentoo.org, or admin-feedback.gentoo.org, or, perhaps
feedback.admin.gentoo.org, or tracker.admin.gentoo.org.   

Of course, bugzilla admins and even experienced developers and users would
easily see it as bugzilla, but with the labels massaged a bit, it wouldn't
/look/ like a bug database, to someone not accustomed to working with one,
and sometimes, what something is called makes a big difference.

As I said, however, I'm not sure it'd be practical to attempt to switch
horses in mid-stream, as they say.  Further, I'll come right out and say
I'm rather to much of a newbie to pretend that what I might have to say
should have any status at all.  If it makes sense and can be used, great.
Otherwise, Gentoo's still the best (meta-)distribution option I've come
across, and I'll continue to use it, improving my skills and familiarity
with my distrib of choice, and aiming toward active participation at
whatever level I happen to be at, perhaps even as a developer if that time
should come.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin



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