From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Glenn Morris Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Proposal to use usertags rather than packages on debbugs.gnu.org Date: Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:06:19 -0500 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1260043644 27096 80.91.229.12 (5 Dec 2009 20:07:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2009 20:07:24 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 05 21:07:17 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1NH0uT-000420-93 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:07:17 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:42600 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NH0uS-0002v9-Q2 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:07:16 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NH0td-0002TQ-RO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:06:25 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NH0tZ-0002Pd-5t for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:06:25 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=50156 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NH0tY-0002PP-Ny for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:06:20 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:48975) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NH0tY-0003vl-AC for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:06:20 -0500 Original-Received: from rgm by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1NH0tX-0007ya-Ts; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:06:19 -0500 X-Spook: defense information warfare Afghanistan UOP Lexis-Nexis X-Ran: -s4rE$|^8!yW"HYjI!D|oFOJn?Vg{nL=;S2ISotidN~sFQ?h-:mARDJ-8Lp4$*T{0}w@Ps X-Hue: white X-Attribution: GM User-Agent: Gnus (www.gnus.org), GNU Emacs (www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:118321 Archived-At: 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.)