Proposal to use usertags rather than packages on debbugs.gnu.org

Proposal to use usertags rather than packages on debbugs.gnu.org

[Glenn Morris]

This is a proposal to change to using "usertags" rather than packages
for classifying Emacs bugs on debbugs.gnu.org. This is something that
was mentioned by Don as an aside

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2009-02/msg00108.html

but never elaborated upon. Usertags are now documented in
admin/notes/bugtracker. I don't think they work on the old server, but
they should on debbugs.gnu.org.

Sorry this is a little long. The idea is simple, but I wanted to try
and cover everything.


Currently, we use packages as labels. The list of packages used so far
(~ 20) can be seen at

http://emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com/cgi-bin/pkgindex.cgi?indexon=pkg

All bugs (that are actual emacs bugs) are in the "emacs" package. We
put them in other packages as well really just as a way to label them,
largely for the convenience of specific maintainers in finding the
issues that relate to them. For example,

http://emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=calendar

lists the "calendar" related bugs.


The advantages of this method are:

1) It's simple, and we can create as many packages as we like

2) There is a simple way to search by packages.


But this isn't really the way debbugs is supposed to work, and leads
to a few minor drawbacks:

1) Because the various packages don't have "maintainers" (in debbugs's
eyes), some of the text on the bug web site is confusing. Eg:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2009-01/msg00957.html

Giving them maintainers requires a configuration change, and can lead
to yet more email duplication. (We could of course simply edit the bug
web pages so that said information does not appear.)

2) Bugs must be in the same package(s) to be merged. This is a bit of
a pain (bug#860).

3) You have to remember to put everything in the "emacs" package.

4) I imaging it's a bit confusing for people used to the Debian bug system.


Switching to usertags instead would eliminate all of those issues.

The drawbacks of usertags are:

1) For a single bug, it's a little more typing:

user bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
usertags 1234 calendar

versus

reassign 1234 emacs,calendar

But you only have to use the "user" command once per message. Tag 5 or
more bugs and it's less typing than reassigning. :)

2) To search you have to construct the URL by hand to some extent.  We
could try and fix this, or simply add a static link.


The main advantages of usertags are:

1) It's closer to the way debbugs expects to work.

2) It would make it much easier to open up debbugs.gnu.org to other
GNU software packages. We could define "real" packages in the debbugs
sense, with different maintainer addresses.


I suggest using bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org as the address for "official"
Emacs tags.

I'm willing to change the existing bugs, but it would require a change
in behaviour for new bug submissions. Not many people specify a
package when they submit though.

(Now that we have root access to the debbugs instance, we could add
"real" tags corresponding to the packages we want to use, but that
requires a configuration change to add a new package.)

Re: Proposal to use usertags rather than packages on debbugs.gnu.org

[Stefan Monnier]

> 1) For a single bug, it's a little more typing:

> user bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> usertags 1234 calendar

That's not great.  How 'bout just:

   usertags 1234 calendar

where some default `user' is used if missing?
Or at least use a `user' that's less error-prone, like

   user emacs
   usertags 1234 calendar

> 2) To search you have to construct the URL by hand to some extent.  We
> could try and fix this, or simply add a static link.

I'd also like to be able to see something like "all bugs except those
with tag gnus/calendar/cedet/w32/ns".

IIUC this doesn't work on the current debbugs but only on the future
debbugs.gnu.org, right?


        Stefan

Re: Proposal to use usertags rather than packages on debbugs.gnu.org

[Glenn Morris]

Stefan Monnier wrote:

> That's not great.  How 'bout just:
>
>    usertags 1234 calendar
>
> where some default `user' is used if missing?

At present, it will use whatever email address the control message
came from. If you change this, it's a (minor) incompatible change with
the way a standard debbugs installation works. It's probably doable,
but also this is something that would make it harder for non-Emacs
packages to use debbugs.gnu.org.

> Or at least use a `user' that's less error-prone, like
>
>    user emacs
>    usertags 1234 calendar

I think that would be an easy hack to debbugs, yes.
(just relax is_valid_user in Debbugs/User.pm ?)

> I'd also like to be able to see something like "all bugs except those
> with tag gnus/calendar/cedet/w32/ns".

Doesn't that Just Work at present?

Here is an example that returns a short search result, so as not to
overwhelm the server:

http://emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?exclude=tags%3Awontfix;package=gnus

> IIUC this doesn't work on the current debbugs but only on the future
> debbugs.gnu.org, right?

I think usertags don't work on the current server, yes.
(By default, debbugs fails to create the necessary directory to store
the usertags, so just silently fails to store them. I had to make the
directories by hand first.)

Re: Proposal to use usertags rather than packages on debbugs.gnu.org

[Glenn Morris]

Glenn Morris wrote:

>>    user emacs
>>    usertags 1234 calendar
>
> I think that would be an easy hack to debbugs, yes.
> (just relax is_valid_user in Debbugs/User.pm ?)

Done, seems to work.

http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/pkgreport.cgi?users=emacs

Re: Proposal to use usertags rather than packages on debbugs.gnu.org

[Glenn Morris]

BTW, anyone should feel free to play around with tagging, closing,
reassigning, submitting etc on debbugs.gnu.org. The data will all get
blown away when a final rsync from the older server is done.

Re: Proposal to use usertags rather than packages on debbugs.gnu.org

[Glenn Morris]

Glenn Morris wrote:

> BTW, anyone should feel free to play around with tagging, closing,
> reassigning, submitting etc on debbugs.gnu.org. The data will all get
> blown away when a final rsync from the older server is done.

Oh, but only close your own bugs, else the original submitter will get
a confusing message.

Re: Proposal to use usertags rather than packages on debbugs.gnu.org

[Glenn Morris]

In conclusion, there seems to be little interest in making this
change.