Bugzilla
Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:44 pm
I'm a little surprised that, so far, nobody's mentioned Bugzilla on these forums.
For those who don't know already, Bugzilla is a web-based tracking system for bugs and feature requests, developed by the Mozilla Organization, and the most powerful system of its kind I've seen. Perhaps the most well-known instance of it is Mozilla's own.
I hereby propose that a Bugzilla installation be set up to track bugs and feature requests in TextPad and other Helios products.
Many of the projects for which Bugzilla is used are open source software of which new versions are frequently released. I believe it is used for some commercial, closed source projects, and I don't know how well they work, but hope that it will work well for TextPad.
Advantages
At the moment, there is a feedback form that can be used to report bugs in TextPad. We also have this forum for discussing ideas for enhancements. However, on the whole, we can't tell at a glance whether Helios has fixed a particular bug or implemented a particular requested feature ready for the next version. Moreover, the feedback form merely sends a private message to Helios. So one cannot tell whether a given bug has already been reported, and Helios no doubt have to weed through many repeat instances of the same bug reported by different people. OTOH, using Bugzilla would make bug reports public, and so before reporting a newly discovered bug, anybody can search the Bugzilla database to see if it's already reported. This would mean fewer repeat bug reports to deal with, and any repeats that do occur can be easily marked as duplicates.
Because there are many similarities between bugs and feature requests, it makes sense to have a unified system for both. This would also assist in assessing what could be considered a bug, a misfeature or a missing feature depending on your point of view.
Considerations
Bugzilla has a voting system, but it's nothing like the voting system here. In essence, voting on Bugzilla is more like petitioning - although a maximum number of votes per user per product can be set. So, for example, it could be set up so that users vote for what they consider the 20 most important issues to be fixed in TextPad, the 20 most important issues to be fixed in WildEdit, and so on.
For a project of this kind, we'd have to be careful about how the bug statuses RESOLVED, VERIFIED and CLOSED are used. Ideally, Helios should be able to indicate that they have fixed an issue even if the fixed version isn't going to come out for a while. A possibility (and indeed a convention followed in some projects) is that RESOLVED would indicate that Helios have fixed it (or rejected the idea, or had no luck in reproducing it, whatever), and that when the next version comes out, the person who originally reported the issue would be expected to mark it VERIFIED if it is dealt with to his/her satisfaction, or reopen it if there are still problems. (Or maybe if the issue is partly fixed, file a new bug report to carry on where it left off.)
Of course, another thing we would have to consider if we switch to Bugzilla is what we would do with this Enhancement Suggestions forum. It's important at least to continue to have the existing content - for example, all the talk about Unicode support is something we need to keep. It's possible that Helios would either put the forum into read-only mode or keep it open for feature discussions that aren't suited to Bugzilla; either way, there'd have to be a sticky post pointing people to Bugzilla as where enhancement requests should be filed.
Conclusion
While in theory anybody could set up a Bugzilla for TextPad, for it to work well Helios would have to pass it off as official, and to commit to using it. This applies whether they set it up themselves or let somebody else do it. But it's certainly a step or three forward. It just might even save them enough of the time spent weeding through thousands of identical, independent bug reports that they can give decent feedback through Bugzilla and still have more time to spend on improving the product.
Personally, I think the benefits of having an official Bugzilla for TextPad (and WildEdit and whatever else Helios develops) would outweigh any disadvantages. What do you think?
Stewart.
For those who don't know already, Bugzilla is a web-based tracking system for bugs and feature requests, developed by the Mozilla Organization, and the most powerful system of its kind I've seen. Perhaps the most well-known instance of it is Mozilla's own.
I hereby propose that a Bugzilla installation be set up to track bugs and feature requests in TextPad and other Helios products.
Many of the projects for which Bugzilla is used are open source software of which new versions are frequently released. I believe it is used for some commercial, closed source projects, and I don't know how well they work, but hope that it will work well for TextPad.
Advantages
At the moment, there is a feedback form that can be used to report bugs in TextPad. We also have this forum for discussing ideas for enhancements. However, on the whole, we can't tell at a glance whether Helios has fixed a particular bug or implemented a particular requested feature ready for the next version. Moreover, the feedback form merely sends a private message to Helios. So one cannot tell whether a given bug has already been reported, and Helios no doubt have to weed through many repeat instances of the same bug reported by different people. OTOH, using Bugzilla would make bug reports public, and so before reporting a newly discovered bug, anybody can search the Bugzilla database to see if it's already reported. This would mean fewer repeat bug reports to deal with, and any repeats that do occur can be easily marked as duplicates.
Because there are many similarities between bugs and feature requests, it makes sense to have a unified system for both. This would also assist in assessing what could be considered a bug, a misfeature or a missing feature depending on your point of view.
Considerations
Bugzilla has a voting system, but it's nothing like the voting system here. In essence, voting on Bugzilla is more like petitioning - although a maximum number of votes per user per product can be set. So, for example, it could be set up so that users vote for what they consider the 20 most important issues to be fixed in TextPad, the 20 most important issues to be fixed in WildEdit, and so on.
For a project of this kind, we'd have to be careful about how the bug statuses RESOLVED, VERIFIED and CLOSED are used. Ideally, Helios should be able to indicate that they have fixed an issue even if the fixed version isn't going to come out for a while. A possibility (and indeed a convention followed in some projects) is that RESOLVED would indicate that Helios have fixed it (or rejected the idea, or had no luck in reproducing it, whatever), and that when the next version comes out, the person who originally reported the issue would be expected to mark it VERIFIED if it is dealt with to his/her satisfaction, or reopen it if there are still problems. (Or maybe if the issue is partly fixed, file a new bug report to carry on where it left off.)
Of course, another thing we would have to consider if we switch to Bugzilla is what we would do with this Enhancement Suggestions forum. It's important at least to continue to have the existing content - for example, all the talk about Unicode support is something we need to keep. It's possible that Helios would either put the forum into read-only mode or keep it open for feature discussions that aren't suited to Bugzilla; either way, there'd have to be a sticky post pointing people to Bugzilla as where enhancement requests should be filed.
Conclusion
While in theory anybody could set up a Bugzilla for TextPad, for it to work well Helios would have to pass it off as official, and to commit to using it. This applies whether they set it up themselves or let somebody else do it. But it's certainly a step or three forward. It just might even save them enough of the time spent weeding through thousands of identical, independent bug reports that they can give decent feedback through Bugzilla and still have more time to spend on improving the product.
Personally, I think the benefits of having an official Bugzilla for TextPad (and WildEdit and whatever else Helios develops) would outweigh any disadvantages. What do you think?
Stewart.