Firebird patch reviews/checkins?

italianscallion · Post by **italianscallion** » October 16th, 2003, 11:26 am

so this thread seems very valuable and relevant, to the low level chaos that seems to govern development here, though i don't know enough about the development process to comment substantively on the specifics of the process.

i will say that if the marority of the people responsible for QA are all complaiing that they aren't having any significant communication with the people responsible for development, then something is seriously broken in this process. q/a and deveopment need to be a feedback loop.

the suggestion of formalizing the process of reviewing and prioritizing bugs seems like an excellent idea to me. how hard would this be to implement, and is there any reason *not* to do this?

matteo

Post by **Nitin** » October 16th, 2003, 1:19 pm

alanjstr wrote:Its interesting to read Seamonkey bugs, where they actually discuss the changes they're making. R and SR give feedback and multiple patches are produced. The concept of "strong ownership" just seems to mean that a handful of people seem to make arbitrary decisions.

I think they've gone from one extreme, to the other. Too much of democracy is bad, but "very strong ownership" isnt good either. Strong ownership means taking a stand on policy decisions where there are too many arguments both for and against (e.g. splash screen), but it should not mean not communicating your position at all.

mconnor · Post by **mconnor** » October 16th, 2003, 7:47 pm

in the end, given that hyatt authored the current roadmap, the following aim, while worthy and achievable, isn't happening:

great software is originated by one or a few hackers building up and leading a larger team of people who test, clean up, extend, and grow to join or replace the first few.

I don't see this happening at all, I'd absolutely love to have someone like hyatt or ben guide me towards being a better Mozilla hacker, but that's not happening, and its a damned shame.

I guess I'll just work on some Seamonkey stuff until someone deigns from on high to respond to the people doing the work in the trenches

edit: timeless is picky

Post by **Nitin** » October 16th, 2003, 10:55 pm

I just commented on one of the patches
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=216501#c54

To me, it appears that Ben's comment was sort of ignored
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=216501#c19

the patch was more in line with what others were saying than with what Ben wanted.
Of course, it does not mean that he should just ignore the bug. A review- would be better.

What is missing is proper communication.

Steffen · Post by **Steffen** » October 17th, 2003, 9:39 am

David, congratulations to the new job! And you've even got an assignee in the passwords manager component! ;-)

I hope this will be more rewarding. Did Hixie ask Brian before he made him the assignee btw?

For those who want to know what I'm talking about, look at bug 222570!

David James · Post by **David James** » October 17th, 2003, 11:19 am

Not that I know of. I think it was more a matter of course since the Firebird roadmap clearly indicates that Brian is charged with Password Manager issues.

Thanks for filing that bug btw (I guess I did most of the prep work last night). Hixie was impressively quick to respond.

Steffen · Post by **Steffen** » October 17th, 2003, 1:43 pm

Your prep work made it pretty easy indeed.
And Hixie was absolutely jaw-dropping quick to respond. I expected all sorts of questions: assignee? qa? component description? opinions? etc. No, nothing, just "done".
Want some more components? Ask Hixie!

David James · Post by **David James** » October 17th, 2003, 1:54 pm

Bugzilla apparently has strong ownership

Steffen · Post by **Steffen** » October 17th, 2003, 2:05 pm

I love it! :mrgreen:

peterx14 · Post by **peterx14** » October 17th, 2003, 7:15 pm

Slightly off-topic..ish... but anyway, as a bug reporter, is there anything I can do to get a bug *confirmed*?

I've posted this <a href="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=215465">bug (215465)</a> but its still unconfirmed depite being (as far as I know), 100% repeatable.

I also bleated about it a little here http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=17981

As I've previously stated, I'm not complaining at all, and I know that this particular bug hardly affects anyone and therefore isn't even slightly urgent! But is there anything I can/could/should've done when posting this bug to get it acknowledged?

Cheers!

Peter.

Post by **Nitin** » October 17th, 2003, 8:42 pm

peterx14 wrote: But is there anything I can/could/should've done when posting this bug to get it acknowledged?

A bug starts UNCONFIRMED. When a person with sufficient permissions can reproduce the bug, he can mark it NEW. When some developer accepts the bug, it is marked as ASSIGNED. Other than talking about it in the forums, and getting someone with permissions to confirm it, i dont know of better ways to get it acknowledged.

If you want permissions on bugzilla, <a href=http://www.gerv.net/hacking/before-you-mail-gerv.html> Mail Gerv </a>

peterx14 · Post by **peterx14** » October 18th, 2003, 9:23 am

vfwlkr wrote:A bug starts UNCONFIRMED. When a person with sufficient permissions can reproduce the bug, he can mark it NEW. When some developer accepts the bug, it is marked as ASSIGNED. Other than talking about it in the forums, and getting someone with permissions to confirm it, i dont know of better ways to get it acknowledged.

Yeah -- I understand broadly how bugzilla works, its just that if a bug is posted then I'd *imagine* that at some point one of the people it is initially mailed to would have a brief look at it. If its an important one, they'd move it forward (either deal with it themselves or pass it on to someone else). I don't understand how a bug can just sit as "unconfirmed" as that implies that it hasn't been looked at at all!

It occurs to me that perhaps I should've posted it as a Firebird bug? I posted it as "browser" though, since it affects both Moz Suite and Firebird, so I think thats technically the correct thing to do, but if most activity is centered around Firebird then it means some bugs will be missed!

I also posted the bug in the Mozillazine forums *before* going to Bugzilla to reality check my results (as I always do), but again I posted in Mozilla Suite->Bugs, which also sees a lot less activity!!

Appologies if I'm coming across as being really "pissy"! I'm really not complaining, but just raising a couple of points:
1). should I post bug as "Firebird" even when they apply to the Suite, and
2). if this is the case, then there's a risk of bugs being missed simply because they're posted under "Browser"

Best wishes!

Peter.

Post by **alanjstr** » October 18th, 2003, 9:26 am

If it affects Seamonkey, then it is Browser, not Firebird. You chose correctly.

There are a LOT of bugs submitted. Even before they are confirmed they get prioritized a bit. Is it a crasher or data-loss? Then someone will try to reproduce it sooner.

But basically, there's a lot of bugs and not enough people to look at them. Even after it has been confirmed it could be more than a year before it gets fixed.

peterx14 · Post by **peterx14** » October 18th, 2003, 9:36 am

Is it a crasher or data-loss?

No no, not at all -- It is a very unimportant bug to the vast majority of people and I entirely understand that it wouldn't even slightly be a priority!

Anyway I've checked my mail since and there's been a new post on the bug concerned pointing out that the testcases not being that clear, so I'll get on with creating some better ones.

Thanks loads for the replies!

Peter.

Post by **Nitin** » October 18th, 2003, 12:29 pm

Steffen wrote:David, congratulations to the new job! And you've even got an assignee in the passwords manager component! I hope this will be more rewarding. Did Hixie ask Brian before he made him the assignee btw?

Question about the new password manager component. Does it mean that Firebird's password manager is completely different from Seamonkey's or does it add to the functionality.

i.e. If there's a seamonkey bug for password manager, will it get fixed in firebird too.

Specifically, should I vote for this: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=117592
or file a new one for firebird.

Firebird patch reviews/checkins?

where are the developers?