[Caml-list] Using Bugzilla for OCaml - will be willing to host or help setting up.

[Aleksey Nogin <nogin@cs.caltech.edu>]

About a year ago there already was a discussion on using Bugzilla for 
tracking OCaml issues/patches. In 
http://caml.inria.fr/archives/200211/msg00275.html Xavier Leroy wrote

>> Would there be any way to get Bugzilla installed at Inria?
> 
> Bugzilla has a reputation of being awfully hard to install.

If this is indeed the main reason for not using Bugzilla, I would be 
willing to host OCaml Bugzilla at http://bugzilla.metaprl.org/ and/or 
help with setting up and configuring Bugzilla on another machine, as 
well as help finding a good way to move the current data over.

The reasons I dislike the current setup and would very much prefer to 
see Bugzilla used for OCaml are numerous:
(a) In current setup, there is no reliable way to post a followup on an 
existing issue. Most of the time when I try doing it, a new entry gets 
created.
(b) There is no easy way to attach files (patches/testcases/etc) to 
existing issues. One can only try to add things inline, but even if that 
works (see (a)), it is ugly and hard to manage.
(c) There is no easy "CC" list that one can subscribe to in order to get 
notified when something happens to a particular entry.
(d) The search function is very primitive
(e) As an "outsider", I feel like I am getting very little feedback on 
the things I submit (when they jut sit there and I do not know what is 
going on), Bugzilla's "NEW/ASSIGNED/REOPENED/RESOLVED/etc" bug status 
classification (together with an "assigned to" field!) does not require 
much more from the developers, but (in my experience) gives much better 
feedback to the reporters.
(f) Entries do not have permanent URLs. Every time an entry is 
re-classified (for example, when it is moved out of "incoming"), the URL 
changes. This means that I can not just point people to an entry 
directly, but instead they have to go through several steps to get there.

In short, I feel that having Bugzilla has a potential to enable me to be 
a better contributor to OCaml. Of course, I have no idea whether this is 
something OCaml team needs or wants.

-- 
Aleksey Nogin

Home Page: http://nogin.org/
E-Mail: nogin@cs.caltech.edu (office), aleksey@nogin.org (personal)
Office: Jorgensen 70, tel: (626) 395-2907

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