Bug reporting for KDE 4

[Andreas Hartmetz]

Am Montag, 29. Oktober 2007 13:41:48 schrieb Dirk Mueller:
> On Sunday 28 October 2007, Andreas Hartmetz wrote:
> > We have *lots* of bugs in KDE 4 and we all hit them all the time, right?
>
> Most of them are so easy to find that probably nobody bothers reporting
> them, correct.
>
> > There is also quite some confusion about where/if/how to report them
> > Bugzilla?
>
> bugs.kde.org is your choice :)
>
> > Heavyweight, slow, I fscking hate bugzilla (MHO) and avoid it.
>
> Well, can we turn that question around and investigate what in particular
> you`d like to see improve with our bug tracker so that you use it?
>
-A more structured front page (Don't have multiple columns, and don't align 
them to the left and right screen borders).
-The new KDE design
-A bug list view that doesn't abbreviate column descriptions (wtf?!)
-The search mask is probably the worst part. A search line for every list box 
with more than 10 items would be a start.
-Purge old stuff from the search mask, like all entries for versions before 
3.2 or so in the "Version" list box. This thing looks like a dumpster.
"cvs", "CVS", "CVS HEAD", "subversion", "Subversion", "SVN", "SVN (KDE3 
branch)", "SVN trunk", "svn trunk", "SVN trunk (KDE4 
version)", "svn-trunk", "trunk". ?!?!?!
The "Component" box is not much better.
-Also, don't display group boxes side by side in the search mask. This is not 
about saving virtual paper.
-I don't understand what "Bugs.KDE.Org Actions" is doing at the bottom of the 
page - or what it's good for. It probably shouldn't be there, or it should be 
at the top.
-Unclutter the quick search page. Google, for example, doesn't shove all its 
features in your face and people still like it and use the features.
-Make the single-bug view's text area less wide. Its width hurts readability.
-Make the single-bug view's text input area less wide.

> I don`t think its a good idea to invent yet-another-way of trackign bugs.
> KDE 4 bugs are no different than KDE 3 bugs, and a mailing list is an
> medium without memory. Use a tracker.
>
Mailing lists certainly have enough memory for a temporary beta bugs list.
KMail stores mails just fine, and its search is an order of magnitude faster 
and easier to use than bugzilla's.

> Regarding trac: It might be suitable for one product (e.g. kmail), but it
> doesn`t scale for the > 60 products we track at bugs.kde.org. Or do you
> really want 60 trac installations?
>
I realize that there probably is no good bug tracker for really large 
projects :(. Bugzilla being written in Perl is a big reason for me not to 
touch it.
Ubuntu's launchpad is user friendly but it probably needs manual maintenance 
of reports by the Ubuntu team. It's not even open source AFAIK.

> Greetings,
> Dirk