Auto Bug Expiry on Launchpad

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, October 15, 2010 05:47:10 pm Bryce Harrington wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 03:44:17PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > On Friday, October 15, 2010 09:31:38 am Deryck Hodge wrote:
> > > Hi, all.
> > > 
> > > I'm sure many of you may have heard by now, but we're getting close to
> > > re-enabling automatic bug expiry on Launchpad.  There's a post about
> > > this on the Launchpad blog:
> > > 
> > > http://blog.launchpad.net/general/enabling-automatic-bug-expiry
> > > 
> > > 
> > > What do you mean "re-enabling"?
> > > -------------------------------
> > > 
> > > Launchpad has always advertised that we auto-expire inactive
> > > incomplete bugs, but we haven’t done this for awhile now.  Some
> > > developers are using their own launchpadlib scripts which set bug
> > > tasks to the EXPIRED status based on the same criteria that Launchpad
> > > will use.
> > > 
> > > These individual scripts will no longer be needed once we re-enable
> > > auto expiry on Launchpad itself.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > What does this means for Ubuntu?
> > > --------------------------------
> > > 
> > > Ubuntu is already configured to take advantage of automatic expiry.
> > > Next week, we will do a few test runs of the script that expires bugs.
> > > 
> > >  We will start with a full run on our staging server, which will not
> > > 
> > > affect the main Launchpad site but will give us an idea if we're doing
> > > the right thing with expiry.  We will then begin batched runs against
> > > launchpad.net, doing runs of 100 or 200 bugs at a time.  Again, this
> > > is to make sure we're not expiring bugs we shouldn't and to make it
> > > easier to recover from mistakes.
> > > 
> > > Once we get through a few batched runs on launchpad.net and we're
> > > confident we're expiring the correct bugs and everything is working
> > > smoothly with this feature, we will set the bug expiry script to do
> > > regular runs, expiring all eligible bug tasks with each run.
> > 
> > Why are we convinced throwing away bugs is a good idea?
> 
> Thank you for helping to make Ubuntu better!
> 
> Unfortunately, you've not provided enough information for us to respond
> to the issue you've raised.  We are marking your email Incomplete for
> now; it will expire in 30 days if we do not hear from you by then.

Right.  That's the brush off we give people when we throw their bugs away.  It 
doesn't explain why that's a good idea.  

A bug may lack sufficient information about a problem to enable a developer to 
immediately address it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't describe a real issue 
with the system.  If the bug is left open, the odds are better that someone 
else with the same problem might come along and pick it up and provide the 
missing information if it's open, but incomplete than if it's marked invalid 
and 'closed'.

Scott K