Re: Getting a bug tracker for the Postgres project

On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 16:52, Joe Abbate <jma(at)freedomcircle(dot)com> wrote:
> Hi Magnus,
>
> On 05/30/2011 08:45 AM, Magnus Hagander wrote:
>> It's fine that a bug tracker *tracks* bugs. It should not control
>> them. That's not how this community currently works, and a lot of
>> people have said that's how they want it to stay (at least for now).
>
> If I may belabor the point, what do you see as an example of
> "controlling" the bugs?  To put some context, there could be at least
> three ways a bug could be closed when someone commits a patch that fixes
> (or claims to fix) a bug:
>
> a. The committer has to use a web interface to indicate the bug is closed
> b. The committer has to send an email to a mail interface
> c. The commit message gets routed to a mail interface that, seeing
> something like "bug #1234" in the first line, automatically closes the bug
>
> Based on the discussion so far, it's obvious that option b is more
> desired than a (where the tracker is, in a sense, controlling *you*),
> but is option c --while presumably more desirable since there's one less
> thing to do or remember-- an instance of "control", since the tracker
> takes an automatic action?  Or do you want the tracker *not* to require
> or take any of the actions, i.e., let someone/thing other than the
> committer/commit message worry about tracking the bug's status, leaving
> it up to volunteers, as Tom said?

I believe b is perfectly fine in this, and to me the preferred way. We
always respond to the original message with something like "yeah,
patched <over here>" or something like that anyway, so I don't
(personally) see a need for the actual commit message to be able to do
it.

The case I want to avoid is (a). And if it's possible to make (b) just
be the -hackers mailinglist and putting a keyword in the right place,
that minimizes the impact on those who spend a lot of time with it
(far more than me..), which is always good.

I personally don't think it's good to expect "external volunteers"
(external when compared to committers) to maintain *all* the bug
statuses. What I want/need those to do is to take care of everything
that the system did *not* pick up properly, or any case when the
hacker/committer forgot something, or things like that.

--
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: http://www.hagander.net/
 Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/