[mythtv] Can't we use Bugzilla on mythtv.org to keep things abit more structured?

[Tako Schotanus]

J. Donavan Stanley wrote:

> Tako Schotanus wrote:
>
>> J. Donavan Stanley wrote:
>>
>>> Morten wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think it's directly *shameful*, that a project like this one doesn't
>>>> have a structured way of sorting out the reported bugs. The mailing 
>>>> list
>>>> we're all using here is just a huge "bomb list", where you don't 
>>>> know if
>>>> people actually read your mails, and the mails just keep on coming 
>>>> in a
>>>> looooong row with no overview at all!
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>
>>> Shameful eh?  How do you know there's not a lot of things going on 
>>> that you don't have a clue about?
>>
>>
>>
>> Than it's shameful that those who do have a clue don't share it with 
>> the rest of the _community_ because I don't have a clue either (but 
>> hey, he quoted me so it's obvious I don't have a clue, now don't I?)
>
>
>
> Now, don't get pissy I wasn't mean and nasty.  But bitching about a 
> project being shameful when you're looking in from the outside is silly.

My response could have used a smiley there because I meant it: it's 
obvious I don't have a clue what is all the issues are otherwise I 
wouldn't have written the original and this message :-)

But I think  you misread the original and my comment because neither of 
says the project itself is shameful! For from it even. But  as a 
professional software engineer I wouldn't be proud of not having a way 
to track all issues related to a project. It's okay if you're the only 
one (and even then you still need a good memory) but it just becomes 
more difficult when more and more people want to participate.

>
>
>>>> The thing is that nobody have the big picture of what's going on 
>>>> here!!!
>>>>  
>>>>
>>> No *you* don't have the big picture.  Your lack of information 
>>> doesn't mean everyone is missing out.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Saying _nobody_ has the big picture is admittedly litterally 
>> incorrect because there are _some_ who have the big picture, but 
>> that's only a small group. So what Morten is saying (and I have said 
>> before) is that there are more people out there that wouldn't mind 
>> spending some time fixing bugs or implementing small features. But 
>> unless there is a list or somebody that can tell us what can/needs to 
>> be done you are not going to get those people involved.
>
>
>
> It's pretty easy to find bugs and feature requests the problem is:  
> Half the time it's not a bug it's the user having screwed up drivers 
> and the like.  Half the features requested are of use to a small 
> percentage of user and zero percent of the developers.  It's very easy 
> to see what's been committed to see if any of those have been 
> done....  It just takes a certain level of commitment right now.
>
So what would be the difference with getting those questions posted here 
or seeing them appear each time in a bug list? At least there they would 
bother less people :-)

>
>>>> And I don't give #%!* about the excuse that goes "Bugzilla reminds 
>>>> me of
>>>> work", since it *is* a good thing to structure things a bit. (Just 
>>>> don't
>>>> do it to death, okay!)
>>>>  
>>>>
>>> I'm pretty sure most folks don't give #%!* about what you don't give 
>>> #%!* about.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Jeez, pipe down man, no need to get personal.
>
>
>
> ROFL
>
You'll get yourself all dirty that way :-)

>
>>>> people really miss. -- It's just a shame that it's impossible to find
>>>> out what people really want, and what's important.
>>>>  
>>>>
>>> I'd love to do some serious bug-fixing here, and coding the things that
>>> Code what YOU really miss.  If you really want to write code for 
>>> someone else it's trivial to find user requests.
>>
>>
>>
>> And this is SO inefficient! I have made a couple of small 
>> contributions to this project even though I could have spent more 
>> time probably but thre was nothing that _I_ needed so I didn't do 
>> anything else. Why? Because I have no idea what people really want 
>> and searching the list for features or bugs is just plain silly, that 
>> way you have no idea whatsoever if the feature/bug has already been 
>> implemented/fixed or if somebody might already be working on it.
>
>
>
> Try the wiki, they managed to gather most/all the user requests up.

Ah yes, the _unofficial_ wiki. Remember this? :

"I rather dislike wikis.

Isaac"

Great resource if the main developer won't give his input to it :-)

Which Wiki are you talking abouyt anyway?
http://icarus.chaosengine.net/twiki/bin/view/Mythtv
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/MythTV
http://www.wlug.org.nz/MythTv

>
> How often do you visit the chat room for devs?  When was the last time 
> you asked for a suggestion?  When was the last time you say "hey guys 
> I'm thinking of working on XYZ what do you think?"  You have plenty of 
> tools at your disposal without Bugzilla.

Ah yes! Chatrooms! Of  course, such a treasure trove of readily 
available information.

1) this is not very useful if you are looking for something to do NOW, 
you'll just have to wait for one of the developers to come online
2) the developers don't know what I'm good at or like doing or how much 
time I have
3) I very much doubt that the developers have a list of things to do 
either, otherwise such a list would have been mailed to this list already
4) Isaac dislikes Wikis, I dislike chatrooms

>
>
>> And that's where something like BugZilla comes in handy, especially 
>> for a project that is becoming more complex each day.
>> You can track all the issues that people have found, depending on the 
>> number of subscriptions or votes or the amount of discussion related 
>> to the issue you can more or less determine if you would make a lot 
>> of people happy or not (which is the main reason why I would ever 
>> work on something that wasn't directly necessary for me personally).
>
>
> There's no doubt it would be useful, it's just not the train wreck you 
> make it out to be without it.
>
You are putting words in my mouth, I've never said that Myth will fail 
(be a train wreck) without something like BugZilla. All I have done is 
_point_out_ that with such a system we _might_ be able to atrack some 
people who are willing to work on Myth. But admittedly "might" is pretty 
uncertain. They only thing I can say is that I wrote my original message 
in May because for _me_ it works like that. And now somebody says that 
for him it works the same, so how many more are there out there that are 
willing to do something but hold off because they have no idea where to 
start?

-Tako
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