[ros-dev] Bugzilla interface

[Timo Kreuzer]

Hi

I'd like to propose an overhaul of our bugzilla interface. The reason is
that the current interface is ugly and confusing and I think we can make
filing and handling bugs less unenjoyable ;-)

First I think it would be very useful, if we could edit the description
field of the bugs. This way we don't need to browse through dozens of
comments to find all neccessary info, while the description only
contains useless stuff. This should be restricted to the original
reporter and testers / developers.

Then when filing a new bug or looking at a bug that is already filed,
the layout is horrible. I'm not a webdesigner, so it's hard for me to
say how it should look like, but definately not the way it is. This
might be appropriate for projects whose website look like 
http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/ but I'm sure, we can do better.

Then when filing a bug there are the following fields:

- reporter - I know who I am, so why show it to me? Unneccessary
- Component: I don't think this field is really useful as it is. First:
Patches are definately not a component. Then it's often hard to tell
where the bug is. for example, if rapps doesn't download anything, is
that related to network or is it a kernel bug or win32 or rapps or is
only the server down? You often don't know it when filing a bug. Also
win32 covers a lot from win32k to shell32, but are these more closely
related than drivers and networking?
- Severity: while I think this field is useful and important, it should
only be editable by testers and developers and should not appear when a
bug is filed.
- Platform: should be removed
- OS: should be removed
- AssignTo, Cc: rarely used on first filing, should IMO only be editable
by testers / developers
- URL: While we use this field from time to time, I think the URL could
as well, if neccessary be put into the description field (provided, it
was editable). This versatile field should imo change it's purpose from
URL to TAG. So we can add different tags, like REGRESSION, PATCH, HACK,
that are currently put into the summery field. It could also contain the
regression range or guilty version
- Alias: we don't use this, or rather currently only misuse this for the
guilty version, which is problematic, as soon as 2 bugs have the same
guilty version, IMO unneccessary
- Summery: should be as wide as the description field
- Description: To get better bugreports, I suggest dividing this field
into "Steps to reproduce:" "Experienced behaviour:"
"Remarks"
These fields can very well be automatically merged into one field, It's
just to show people that they must provide steps to reproduce, instead
of writing dozens of lines about their hardware configuration and how
they feel about the bug.


Regards,
Timo