[CentOS-devel] Links our Mantis to upstreams' Bugzilla - a idea for the community to help with

[Charlie Brady]

On Tue, 1 Sep 2009, Johnny Hughes wrote:

>>> My idea was to create a daemon of some sort that at regular intervals
>>> checks all bugs in our systems that have a upstream bugzilla number
>>> entered (Mantis support customs fields that could be used for this).
>>> If there is a update in the bugzilla since the last run it is copied
>>> into the bug in Mantis. That why we can get notified automatically and
>>> can react to the updates more quickly and spend less time needing to
>>> follow up.
>>
>> Firstly I'd say that CentOS should respond as quickly as possible to all
>> upstream updates, and there is no need to monitor their bug tracker to do
>> that. In fact, doing anything at all other than quickly building and
>> verifying upstream updates will actually slow down how quickly CentOS can
>> respond to upstream updates (given finite resources).
>
> Well, we already do that ... us building updates does not have anything
> to do with any bugzilla entries.

It wasn't me who asserted that CentOS could respond more quickly to 
updates if there were links between the bug trackers.

> They don't slow us down, updates have priority.

OK, so the justification for the proposed "daemon of some sort" doesn't 
stand up to scrutiny.

> In reality, we would like the community look through and research the
> bugs and provide feedback on what they find.

I think it would be more useful for them to do that via the Red Hat bug 
tracker for any bug which is listed there. It doesn't help Red Hat much to 
have lots of useful research results in the CentOS bug tracker.

>> Or just attach a bugzilla URL to mantis, then close the bug, with status
>> "Upstream". Anyone visiting Mantis who wishes to know status can then just
>> click the link, and get the latest news straight from the horse's mouth.
>> And no need for CentOS worker ants to spend any time at all on followup.
>
> Well, CentOS users frequently enter bugs in our system ... we want to
> link those to upstream bugs (and we currently do in the remarks
> section).

OK. I have no problem with the process thus far. I just think that at this 
stage bugs should be closed in the CentOS bug tracker. There is no more 
CentOS work to do - once a link is created to an upstreambug.

> Red Hat only wants bugs in their system from CentOS users of
> someone verifies it is also a problem in both CentOS and RHEL.

Is that the case? Do you have a reference for that?

Those bugs anyway - ones for which an upstream bug tracker entry does not 
exist - are not at issue here.

> Also, when we are doing a release, we will track any issues we find
> during QA testing in our bugs database, and link to our database in our
> release notes.  If there is an upstream bug, we also link to that.

OK. I'm just asking what the point is in keeping the bug open once the 
link to the upstream bug is recorded.

> If it is an RHEL issue too and there is no bug, we will create one in 
> the RH Bugzilla.  That is one of the major benefits that CentOS provides 
> to Red Hat ... many more QA testers of their code and feedback.

Sure. I'm not suggesting that there is no benefit in bugs being reported 
in the Red hat bug tracker. That's exactly where they need to be reported, 
because that's where they are going to be fixed. What I am questioning is 
whether there is any benefit to anyone of accumulating more information in 
the CentOS bug tracker which doesn't appear in the Red hat bug tracker.

And I'm also questioning whether there is any point in developing special 
software to track changes in the Red Hat bug tracker. If Red Hat put out 
an update, CentOS will pick it up. End of story - no need for a "daemon of 
some sort".

---
Charlie