Re: Linux 2.6.21

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>]

On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 03:33:39PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sat, 28 Apr 2007, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > 
> > We are already quite good at ignoring bug reports that come through 
> > linux-kernel, and it's an _advantage_ of the kernel Bugzilla to see more 
> > than 1600 open bugs because this tells how bad we are at handling bugs.
> 
> No, it just shows that bugzilla doesn't matter for most of the kernel.
> 
> Don't say that "bugzilla tells how bad we are at handling bugs". It tells 
> how bad *bugzilla* is for handling bugs, nothing more.
> 
> Trying to play politics by pointing to bugzilla is pointless. Bugzilla is 
> used for a few subsystems (ACPI seems to use it actively, for example), 
> but I doubt most developers use it.
> 
> Would be be good to have a better bug-tracking setup? Yes. But I think it 
> takes man-power, and it would take something *fundamentally* better than 
> bugzilla.

Bugzilla has an email interface.
Andrew forwards bugs from Bugzilla to developers.

There might be small room for improvements, but I don't see how 
man-power or technology could make a big difference in this area.

> Maybe the new "http://kernelnewbies.org/known_regressions"; thing will 
> evolve to something worth tracking. Right now, bugzilla isn't it (although 
> it can be a useful tracking place for individual bugs, *once* you've found 
> and gotten the right developer involved - but that's a huge step that 
> bugzilla generally does *not* do for us).

"*once* you've found and gotten the right developer involved" is the 
real problem, not how to track bugs.

And not only a developer active in this area, more important a 
developer who knows the subsystem/driver involved *and is willing
to work on bug reports*.

*This* is *the* problem.
And no change in bug tracking will help with this problem.

> 			Linus

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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