Re: What do you want me to do? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> writes:
> Bugzilla is far from perfect. But it's getting better.

FWIW, I would like to try a bugzilla-based tracking system for Postgres.
Our last attempt at a tracking system failed miserably, but I think that
was (a) because the software we tried was really unpolished, and (b)
because we let anybody and his pet chihuahua enter bug reports, so the
signal-to-noise ratio went to zero in no time.  As long as we can
restrict data entry to people who know what they're doing (not
necessarily developers, but people who know PG well enough to tell bug
from user error), I think it could work, and would beat the heck out of
the way we do things now.


> . if we used bugzilla this might give some impetus to the bugzilla 
> team's efforts to provide pg as a backend (maybe we could help with that)

Red Hat has been using a PG-based version of bugzilla for some time.
I'm not sure what the holdup is in getting that work merged back
upstream, but I'd sure like to see it happen.  Anyway we could start
with using their version, rather than suffer the ignominy of using That
Other Database to track our own bug reports ;-)


> . are there any active developers without web access? If not, why is 
> pure email interaction important?

Bugzilla already does email output (ie, notify you of changes to bug
entries you're interested in) well enough.  We thought during the last
go-round that it was important to have email input so we could allow
mail to pgsql-bugs to go directly into the tracking system, but in
hindsight that was a really bad idea.  What we could use instead is for
someone knowledgeable to commit to transferring *valid* emailed bug
reports into the tracking system.  Bruce could do that if he wants, but
there are surely dozens of other people who would be qualified to handle
this task.

Actually, whatever software we pick to run the tracking system,
my guess is that the experiment will not stand or fall on the software.
What we need for success is one or two people who will take
responsibility for housekeeping: putting in valid reports, spotting
duplicate reports and doing the right cleanup, etc.  Do we have any
volunteers for that sort of thing?
        regards, tom lane