The return of the Server papercuts

[Thierry Carrez]

Hello everyone,

During the Lucid development cycle, we decided to create a Server
papercuts project, to translate our increased focus on QA and polish
into real actions. This project focused on identifying and fixing lots
of minor annoyances, low-hanging-fruit bugs that traditionally get less
attention than others. It was successful enough that we decided to
pursue it during the Maverick cycle !

A Server papercut is a server usability issue that affects a server
package and has an obvious and easy fix. Examples include bugs affecting:

 * Out-of-the-box readiness (bad default configs, package requiring
tedious manual steps to go from installed to running...)
 * Teamplay (packages not working well together, while making sense to
be used together)
 * Smooth operation (anything requiring painful or repetitive manual work)
 * Missing documentation (missing man pages, missing inline comments in
default configs...)
 * Upgrade issues (init scripts failures blowing up maintainer scripts...)
 * Cruft (broken symlinks, residue of purge...)
 * Server coherence (abusive recommends, missing command-line completion...)

We’ll run this effort during the first three development iterations. The
biggest change since the Lucid Server papercuts is that we start before
FeatureFreeze this time, so small new features or behavior changes are
accepted, too !

The first iteration (Alpha-2 subcycle) starts now. We'll nominate bugs
until June 1st, start the cycle on June 2nd and end it on Jun 28. Our
goal is to get 16 targets for this iteration.

So now it’s time to nominate your personal pet bug, your favorite minor
annoyance, your preferred Server PITA ! Here is the process to follow:

1. If the papercut isn’t already filed as an Ubuntu bug in Launchpad,
file a bug against the affected Ubuntu package

2. Look up the bug you want to nominate as a Server papercut, then click
on “Also affects project”

3. Click “Choose another project” and type in “server-papercuts”, click
“Continue”

4. Click on “Add to Bug report”

And that’s it ! We’ll triage and select the nominated bugs during the
next Ubuntu Server meeting, Tuesday June 1st, 1800 UTC on IRC channel
#ubuntu-meeting on Freenode.

More details ?

Project spec: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerPapercutsMSpec
Current bug list: https://bugs.launchpad.net/server-papercuts
Join the team at: https://launchpad.net/~server-papercutters

Cheers,

-- 
Thierry Carrez
Ubuntu server team