Re: BUG #18784: Bugs and BugTracking

=?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org> writes:
> I described what I see as working during last year's pgconf.dev
> developer's meeting, namely a system very similar to our patch
> tracker^W^W commitfest app, which would contain links to pgsql-bugs
> threads.

Yeah, given our existing workflow (which no one seems in a hurry
to change), what we fundamentally want is an index to mailing list
threads about bugs, plus status information.

> Why do I think this would be successful? Many years ago, there was a
> proposal that would use Debian's bugtracker, which is essentially a
> glorified mailing list with per-bug archives, plus a lot of smarts to
> know when to close a bug. This had the most traction among this
> community, but the idea died down when it was clear that 1) the Debian
> community was not really open to sharing their stuff, and 2) nobody
> offered to maintain this.

Even more years ago (roughly around 2000 IIRC), we actually did try
to use a bug tracker, but the experiment only lasted a few weeks.
It failed because (a) that tracker was not adapted to mailing-list-
based workflow, and (b) we didn't have people who were interested
in moderating/curating the tracker's contents. If you don't have
some people who will keep status entries up-to-date, close out junk
bugs, and such, the tracker descends to uselessness very quickly.

Our community was far smaller then than it is today, and I bet
finding people for (b) would be easier. But we still need
something that meets criterion (a), and GitHub ain't it.

regards, tom lane