Re: Linux 2.6.21

On Sunday, 29 April 2007 18:07, Linus Torvalds wrote:

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007, Andi Kleen wrote:
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

The thing is, bugzilla is totally broken because it's designed to help
track bugs, but it's *not* designed to actually handle the much harder
problem, which is to actually get the *right* developers to be aware
of the *right* bugs!

This means we need people who figure out who to assign bugs too.
Aka bugmasters.

Yes. But not using bugzilla.

I don't know if you've noticed already, but I'm not the only one that
doesn't have a very high opinon of bugzilla ;)

What works is somebody who is a bugmaster, and it doesn't really matter
*what* bug tracker he points to (bugzilla being one of the possibilities,
although not necessarily the best, and absolutely NOT the only choice),
and turn them into emails. Once they are emails, bugzilla can track them.

Andrew does this, and yes, Adrian did it.

In theory it could be nearly automated. Figure out what files related
to the bug and assign to the last 5 people who submitted patches
for them and/or signed off.

I do think you're pretty optimistic. I think it's true for trivial driver
bugs, but even for trivial driver bugs the initial report is often not
enough to pinpoint the driver.

Let's take the sis900 bug as an example (not because I want to rag on that
being a problem, but it happened to be a _trivial_ bug in 2.6.21, so it's
a good case of something really really easy - and if that easy case isn't
handled trivially and obviously, then the bug-reporting doesn't work).

In that case, the initial report was (condensed version, but fairly
accurate): "system hangs on boot at random points. 2.6.21-rc7 worked
well".

Now, realistically, if that entry had been in bugzilla, what would you do?

Equally realistically, let's ignore bugzilla for a moment, and ask what
the best method for handling something like this would be? Have an open
mind, no rules on "have to use bug tracker XYZ".

You know what? The report went to me and the kernel mailing list as email.
And that was the *right* thing in that case. There was no good sign of who
it should go to, and while there wasn't a whole lot of information there,
there *was* a very tight timeframe (ie it could pinpoint to within about a
week when it started). But the only thing I could really ask for was for
the person to bisect it.

Would bugzilla have helped? HELL NO. It would have been a disaster. It
would have wasted reporter time, it would have wasted developer time, and
it would likely have been ignored because the bug report wasn't specific
enough to really trigger any good queries or trigger a maintainer.

So bugzilla wouldn't have helped even for a _trivial_ bug.

I personally suspect that bugzilla helps more if a bug actually has a real
history, and people want to actually save that history because they are
stumped. But I think it should come in *then*, not immediately. Because it
is actually too intrustive for the simple stuff - and most bugs actually
are simple, it's just that they also get resolved so simply that people
don't even think of them as bugs (ie we have a lot of "duh" kind of fixes
too).

I completely agree.

My personal experience with bugzilla is that it's very unfriendly to
reporters. IMHO it's suitable for tracking unresolved problems along with
debug patches, system information etc., but not for _reporting_ new ones.

Greetings,
Rafael
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Linux 2.6.21
    ... The kernel Bugzilla currently contains 1600 open bugs. ... Adrian, why do you keep harping on this, and ignoring reality? ... I suspect some bug reports get ignored deliberately. ... engage some developers on a bug report. ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: Mantis package bombs
    ... for you to report problems in the place that's most accommodating ... things to bugzilla personally. ... implied when I described the bug as "outstanding" rather than "still ... if a bug is likely to be an upstream bug (not ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: [patch] scsi: revert "[SCSI] Get rid of scsi_cmnd->done"
    ... This bug was actually hidden in bugzilla for ages, ... The bugzilla just tracked a bug reported to lkml. ... "if you have a problem with the Linux kernel, then report it to lkml" ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: [patch] scsi: revert "[SCSI] Get rid of scsi_cmnd->done"
    ... current bugzilla ... ... just getting new SCSI bug reports tipped onto the SCSI ... that he must report it if he wants it to be fixed. ... the most important reader contribution to LKML is ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • [EXPL] Improper Input Validation in Bugzilla (Exploit)
    ... Developers can use Bugzilla to keep a commotion list as well ... Text Bug Listing", so we then know file is created. ... * Can edit all aspects of any bug. ... sub generate_chart { ...
    (Securiteam)