Launchpad bug workflow change

[Gavin Panella]

On 20 Jun 2007, at 13:26, Henrik Nilsen Omma wrote:

> Scott Kitterman wrote:
>>
>>> So far I think most will agree. It seems that the controversy  
>>> centers
>>> around the restricted use of In Progress, Fix Committed and Fix
>>> Released. There is also a feeling that Todo and Triaged are  
>>> superfluous.
>>>
>>
>> I can see the point in the new states.  At worst they just won't  
>> get used
>> much.  The potential for harm comes with the additional restrctions.
>>
>> As an aside, why was the most controversial aspect of these  
>> changes not
>> mentioned in your message to devel-announce?
>>
>
> The simple answer is that the communication between the Launchpad team
> and Ubuntu team failed in this instance. I got a brief ping on IRC
> yesterday and felt I should post a notice about it. I wrote that based
> on some notes, from my memory and some IRC questions. I had assumed  
> that
> the new states and renaming would be the controversial part and did  
> not
> recall the restrictions item until someone asked a question that
> reminded me. My mistake.
>
> It turns out now, after having had more talks with the Launchpad team
> that *restrictions will not be placed on In Progress, Fix Committed or
> Fix Released* at this point. More work is needed to make that  
> possible,
> so it will not be included in this round. Doing that is still part of
> the plan but this debate will obviously make us look at that again.
>
> I've asked the Launchpad developer working on this to post a  
> summary of
> the changes being made now so we get it directly from the source. I've
> already contradicted myself so many times that I should probably  
> stop :)

I'm a Launchpad developer responsible for these changes, so I'll try  
and clear up confusion over the 'technical' parts of the bug workflow  
changes. Henrik has already gone through the motivations and  
reasoning, and Matthew Revell is putting together some documentation  
and help pages, so I'll try not to cover that stuff.

As Henrik has said, we have not implemented anything from the bug- 
workflow blueprint relating to developer statuses... yet. They are  
still planned, but we held off for many of the same reasons that have  
come up on this thread: we're not yet completely happy with the  
design either.

Here's a full rundown of what's going into the next Launchpad release  
for bug workflow:

3 statuses have been renamed:

  * Unconfirmed -> New
  * Needs Info -> Incomplete
  * Rejected -> Invalid

and 2 more have been added:

  * Triaged
  * Won't Fix

The 2 additions are restricted. Only bug contacts or project owners  
can change a bug to Triaged or Won't Fix.

We have not removed any statuses, and all but those 2 additions  
remain unrestricted. You could actually ignore Triaged and Won't Fix  
and continue to use Launchpad exactly as before, but we obviously  
want people to start using them. Certainly in larger projects I think  
they'll have a lot of value, but I'm keen to see how the new statuses  
are used for real, and what changes that'll have on our plans.

Gavin.