GNOME Love Tasks (was: Re: [gnome-love]Fixing dialog boxes)

[Dan Mueth <dan eazel com>]

On 23 Apr 2001, Miguel de Icaza wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
>    I do not think that gnome love is just a dumping ground for `tasks'
> that people want to get done.  We need to have an organized way of
> keeping track of things people want, and that place is Bugzilla.  And
> once this is in place, we can evaluate which ones are the best to
> tackle.

We also have the GNOME Task Database: http://www.gnome.org/todo/index.php3

The purpose of the task database is to not only provide a list of things
which need to be done (as does Bugzilla), but also to include a contact
person, a difficulty rating, information about the level of expertise,
etc. for a given task.  

Aside from Bugzilla not having these fields, I'm not sure how one would go
to Bugzilla and search for items which are appropriate for a new
contributor to work on.

Finally, the task database has an interface which is friendlier for new
contributors.  This is a nice feature.  It means that the GNOME hackers
who help out on the Love project can spend more of their time helping
new contributors to get things done and less time being a middle-man
between the task list and the new contributor.  (Not to demean the
importance of helping the new contributor find the right job, but in many
cases a new contributor would enjoy looking over the full list and
selecting a task for him or herself.)

I'm not sure how we should use these two tools together though, since they
have overlapping functionality.  I think tasks should list bug numbers for
items which appear in Bugzilla.  

>    So we need a task maintainer, anyone up for the job?

I think if we could encourage everybody to post tasks to the task database
then we don't need a single maintainer.  Our tasks really have to come
from everybody since no single person knows what tasks needs to be done
for all of GNOME.

So, an important part of the job of the Love project is to encourage GNOME
developers to come up with tasks and put them in the Task Database.

Thoughts?

Do people think we should use the Task Database for the task list?

Dan