Bugzilla - call for package maintainers, I need your help

[Martin Baulig <martin home-of-linux org>]

Hi guys,

if you're maintaining any package in GNOME CVS or any
package for which we currently have bugs in the GNOME
Bugtracker (bugs.gnome.org), please read this.

I need your help to be able to copy all the bugs from
bugs.gnome.org -> bugzilla.gnome.org. This afternoon
I did a short count and the result was the following:

- we have about 20.000 bugs in the Bugtracker
- there are up to 16.000 older bugs which have been
  removed from the Bugtracker, but which still exist
  in a backup file.

So there are about 30.000-35.000 bugs to move. This
number isn't such a big problem since it doesn't make
a difference for the import scripts whether I import
a single bug or 10.000 of them, it's just a matter of
how long it takes.

The big problem - and where I really need your help
to complete this - is that all the bugs are cluttered
up over about 500 packages. As you know, in debbugs you
can specify whatever package you like when you're
reporting a bug - so there are typos, different names
for the same package and so on.

So today in my lunch break I went ahead and printed the
"Gnome trouble tickets by subject" page after sorting it
after the number of bugs per package. The result are 6
pages A5 full of packages with bug reports.

- the first page only contains packages with more than
  25 bugs each
- half of the second page has packages with more than
  10 bugs each
- the remaining 4,5 pages are full of packages with 10
  or less bugs each.
- almost 3 pages are full of packages with 1 bug each.

So here's what we need to do:

- walk over the package list on bugs.gnome.org, and check
  whether there are obvious typos or multiple names for
  the same package. For all such packages which contain
  less than 10 bugs, reassign them to the correct package.

This should only clean up typos and stuff like "abiword",
"AbiWord Personal", "AbiWord personal" etc. - we'll handle
things like "gnome-panel" and "panel" with aliases (read
below).

Now comes the bigger and much more important task:

- if you don't already have a Bugzilla account, go to
  http://bugzilla.gnome.org/ and create a new account.

  Important: if you're working at Helix Code, Eazel or
    Red Hat, please use your company email address when
    creating your bugzilla account; you'll automatically
    get admin privileges (so that you can create products,
    components etc.) if your email matches the following
    regex:

        .*@(helixcode\.com|redhat\.com|gnome\.org|eazel\.com)

  If you aren't working at one of there companies or want
  to use another email address, then I need to manually
  give you admin privs, so just drop me a short mail (of
  course, suggestions on how to improve that regex are also
  welcome :-))

- once you have admin privileges, create a new product for
  your package and as many components and versions as you
  like.

  Please do also create a `general' component and a version
  `unspecified'; this is what the import scripts choose if
  they can't figure out anything better.

- if you want to have a `<package>-maint bugzilla gnome org'
  email alias, checkout the "halloween" module from CVS and
  edit halloween/bugzilla.gnome.org/maint-aliases.txt.

  The format of this file is alias style, but the "-maint"
  suffix will be appendet automatically (so you add, for
  instance "gtop: martin home-of-linux org").

  If you want to have such an alias at a later time but don't
  want to get any mail from it at the moment, use "bugmeister"
  as email address (the first line of the file contains an
  example).

- You can use "bugmeister bugzilla gnome org" as initial owner
  of any component if you don't want to put in yourself.

  The maint-aliases.txt is not yet synced with the actual alias
  list, but it'll be very soon.

I'll be on IRC on Wednesday and on Friday to help you with this
stuff if you want.

- after creating a Bugzilla product and components for your
  package, go to bugs.gnome.org and look which debbugs packages
  correspond to your Bugzilla product.

  The import / submit scripts can automatically file all bug
  reports into the correct component within your package if there's
  a proper alias map.

  To create such an alias map, check out the "halloween" module
  from CVS and add your package to
  halloween/bugzilla.gnome.org/alias-map.txt; there's a comment at
  the top of the file which explains you how.

After that, you can drop me a mail that you're ready for a test
import of all bugs for your package if you want to. There's a test
installation at www.gnome.org:65352 for this, it's database is
periodically copied from bugzilla.gnome.org - that's where we can
test the import scripts.

If you have any problems or suggestions regarding the Bugzilla
installation at bugzilla.gnome.org, please file it as a bug report
under the `bugzilla.gnome.org' product.

That's it, basically. As time permits this week, I'll hopefully
finish the import scripts and hack some preliminary email interface
(bug reporting a-la submit bugs gnome org style already works,
submitting followups to existing bug reports is on my todo for this
week, everything else (such as modifying bugs) has a very, very low
priority for me until the bug import is done, if something wants to
take over this job, then you're welcome :-))

As a last note, since there are so many packages in the Bugtracker
with very low bug counts (this includes closed bugs (!)) I really
need your help to complete this big job.

Especially I need some volunteers who look at all the packages with
less than 10 bugs. If noone cares about them, their bugs will most
likely all end up in the "general" product in Bugzilla.

-- 
Martin Baulig
martin gnome org (private)
baulig suse de (work)