Re: Why Is There No Bug Tracker And Why Are Patches Sent Instead Of Pull Requests

From: Andrew Ardill <andrew.ardill@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 29, 2012, 23:58 UTC
Message-ID: <CAH5451miv_Mo_9tZV+mfDEHuEX0491duqAYh66aOzLsMLTNkaA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20120229225304.GA9099@burratino>

On 1 March 2012 09:53, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 28 quoted lines

> Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> opticyclic <opticyclic@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> Firstly, why is there no Bug Tracker such as JIRA for the git project?
>>
>> Probably because nobody volunteered to set-up, actively de-dupe, triage
>> and maintain it in general.
>
> By the way, my usual offer/shameless plug[*] still stands: anyone who
> can stand the interface is welcome to file, triage, and work on bugs
> in the bugtracker at <http://bugs.debian.org/src:git>, as long as it
> seems possible that your bugs might also affect Debian.
>
> "Work on" usually means "forward to the git mailing list", but maybe
> having a bug number is a comfort to some people. ;-) See
> <http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting> for instructions.
>
> All that said, that is still not The Bug Tracker for the git project.
> I would not want it advertised on git-scm.com until we have had some
> more practice dealing with outside bugs, and maybe more contributors
> sorting through them.
>
> It may be that others provide a similar service.
>
> Hope that clarifies a little,
> Jonathan
>
> [*] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/181336/focus=181402

I mentioned I was going to do this a while ago, but decided to bite the bullet and actually do it.

I have set up a JIRA instance using Atlassian's OnDemand service, available at https://git-scm.atlassian.net/

The set-up is a work in progress, so don't be surprised if you log in and it is not brimming with content!

For now I have locked it down so that anyone can sign up and log in, but only approved users can create issues. I imagine this restriction will be loosened down the track, but for now if you would like to contribute please email me directly with your username and I will add you as a 'Trusted User' (you will need to sign up first). For now, normal users and trusted users are identical except that trusted can create new issues. If you want to update issues you will need to be a 'Developer' - if you think you fall into this category please tell me and I will add you to it as well (this is the role I think most people active on this list will need to be)! This will allow you to edit issues, be assigned issues and resolve them.

If anyone has experience administrating JIRA and want to help out _please_ let me know as I know how quickly these things can grow and become unmanageable. Additionally, if anyone has any ideas, or thinks we should throw the gates open now (as opposed to locking it down for a time) comment here and we can make it happen.

As I see it (and Junio has mentioned before) we are going to need people who are able to manage the issues in this system, ensuring that stale issues are closed out and progress matches what is happening on the list. There is no intention to replace the list as a place where issues are reported and discussed, however that may happen to some degree anyhow. We should consider how a dedicated bug tracker like this might impact the community and design for that. For my mind, if JIRA was to become a 'mirror' of what goes on here in the list that is ok - perhaps a duplication of efforts, but ok. If nothing else, we will have a structured store of information keeping track of issues that is very easy to access and work with.

I don't think I have enough context on all that is going on on the list to be able to keep everything up-to-date myself, so if you think you can assist in this capacity, again please contact me.

In case you were interested, some information on me: I am a keen git user of who-knows-how-many years, and have been following the list for the last 12 months or so. My day job is as a JIRA Consultant (and everything else!) with the premier Atlassian services partner [1].

Regards,

Andrew Ardill

[1] customware.net - we also work with Zendesk, and offer custom plugins, customisations, theming, training and support packages as well