From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: =?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
cc: bharatdb@cdac.in, pgsql-bugs@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: BUG #18784: Bugs and BugTracking
In-reply-to: <202501241825.2tpr3l42xkzt@alvherre.pgsql>
References: <202501241825.2tpr3l42xkzt@alvherre.pgsql>
Comments: In-reply-to =?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera
 <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
	message dated "Fri, 24 Jan 2025 19:25:08 +0100"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-ID: <518456.1737747323.1@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2025 14:35:23 -0500
Message-ID: <518457.1737747323@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Archived-At: 
 <https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/518457.1737747323%40sss.pgh.pa.us>
Precedence: bulk

=?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.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