Launchpad bug workflow change

[Jordan Mantha]

On Wed Jun 20, 2007 at 01:13:41AM +0200, Henrik Nilsen Omma wrote:
> Jordan Mantha wrote:
> >>>  
> >>>      
> >>Please don't interpret it that way :) As I replied to Scott, if the bug 
> >>is not handled by someone who can upload to Ubuntu then it's fair to say 
> >>that nobody is working on a fix in Ubuntu.
> >>    
> >
> >This is just not true. In Universe we have a great number of people working
> >on bugs that are not able to upload. These people use status,
> >subscriptions, and assignments to get their work sponsored. Even in Main
> >there are quite a number of people who aren't in ubuntu-dev that work on
> >bugs. Your statement is only true in the sense that a developer must touch
> >it at some point to upload the fix, but the work is often enough not done
> >by the developer.
> >  
> Right, and that's the only sense in which I intended it (though I can 
> see I have been too terse). We are trying to make a 1-dimesional setting 
> field fit a range of situations here. A bug tracker that is used by many 
> projects of different sizes will never fit everyone perfectly, but that 
> common bug tracker also has its advantages.
> 
> If we want a certain group of people who write code but are not MOTU or 
> core-dev to be able to set the whole range of status settings then we 
> can set up a team that gives that access. I agree that people can write 
> valuable code without doing .deb packaging for example.

OK, but it wasn't so much the new status fields that has people concerned
as changing who can set the status like:

"A developer can:
  * Move the bug from Triaged to ToDo or push it back to a previous category. "

Why should only a person in ubuntu-dev be able to use ToDo? Other people
need to be able to set ToDo, In Progress, Fix Commited, and Fix Released. 

> >Bottom line, people who are assigned to a bug need to be able to modify it.
> >If you want to control who can be assign bugs then that's a slightly 
> >different
> >matter, but there *has* to be a workflow that allows for non-developers to
> >work on bugs. Anything less would severely affect Universe and probably
> >Main as well.
> >  
> We have not made any changes to bug assignment (though I have my own 
> opinions about that).

No, but what is being changed is who can do what. And you previously stated
that people shouldn't assign themselves to bugs they aren't going to fix. I
think that is very true and perhaps a solution to the current problem is to
allow the person who is assigned to a bug to change the status as
neccessary because that is the person doing the actual work.
 
> I agree that we should encourage more people to work on bug fixes. If 
> this change makes that more difficult then we need to find solutions to 
> that.

Well, I think Scott's point is that if the people affected by such a change
were consulted earlier on then maybe a better solution would have been
found in the first place. A UDS BOF is no where near enough input on
essential workflow/permission changes.

Perhaps this is all a lot of misunderstanding and a big deal over nothing,
but sudden changes to one of the most important workflows we have maybe
need more warning/discussion in the future.

-Jordan