Transition-Regression Tag

[Emmet Hikory]

Kurt Wall wrote:
> On 06/01/2009 06:44:48 PM, Brian Curtis wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Upon discussions with mrooney about potential regressions due to
>> programs (like empathy and banshee) being transitioned to default.
>> There is a new tag, which is also listed in
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Tags called "transition-regression" that
>> is meant to mark bugs that may need to be addressed so users can make
>> an easy transition from one default to another.
> 
> Hm. Is it actually a regression if things break because the default
> application changed?
> 
> Why is it useful to note that this bug is a plain vanilla regression
> while that bug is associated with changing a default application?

    The trick is that it's not a regression in the application.  The bug
may even only be a minor issue for the package against which it is
filed.  However, that bug does represent a regression in the behaviour
of the default Ubuntu Desktop.  Arguably such bugs could be filed
against Ubuntu or against ubuntu-desktop, but they don't really
represent bugs in those packages, so much as differences in behaviour
related to the change in the default application.

    A few potential examples:

A) There could be a bug that upgrading from Jaunty to Karmic and running
the default music player forgets the previous library location and
metadata (e.g. ratings).  This could be resolved by better documentation
and the provision of a migration tool, and may not actually require any
changes in Banshee at all.

B) There could be a change in the way that the selected application
interacts with external peripherals (e.g. a Creative Zen).  If this
change would make something that previously worked by default not work
by default, it's worth prioritising that fix over another bug that might
not be so apparent to users who switch to the new application.

C)  There could be a change to the UI that made some option less
discoverable.  This probably needs more documentation, might need UI
tweaking and may benefit from a release note.

    The idea is mostly to collect the set of these things for
prioritising and documentation.  This should significantly reduce the
amount of effort spent trying to help users caught by these issues and
help ensure a smooth transition.


-- 
Emmet HIKORY