[webkit-dev] bug life cycle questions

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On Dec 13, 2009, at 3:06 PM, Adam Barth wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Chris Jerdonek
> <chris.jerdonek at gmail.com> wrote:
>> (1) Generally speaking, who has Bugzilla "canconfirm" privileges?
>
> Historically, we've given out canconfirm privileges to folks who make
> valuable contributions to the bug database, both in terms of
> filing/fixing bugs and triaging existing bugs.  There doesn't appear
> to be much process around giving out the privilege.

We may want to consider handing out canconfirm to all bugzilla users  
by default, because the UNCONFIRMED state is not giving us much value.

>
>> (2) When a bug is out of the UNCONFIRMED status, what individuals can
>> set the "Assigned To" field?
>
> The Assigned To field is rarely used.  It's most common use is if a
> bug is blocked on a specific individual, for example for feedback on a
> patch or to land an already reviewed patch.

It's totally ok to assign a bug to yourself as an indicator that you  
are working on it. People don't often do this and it's not required.  
But I do think it's good form to do so at least at the point where you  
have submitted a patch, if not sooner.

I'm happy to give any committer or any person who has filed good bugs  
or submitted good patches or contributed to the bug tracker in general  
editbugs and canconfirm privileges. Or if they otherwise seem  
trustworthy. It's not meant to be a process barrier, just as low-grade  
vandalism prevention.

>
>> (3) Before starting work on an UNCONFIRMED bug, what's the most
>> efficient way of getting that bug assigned to you (assuming you do  
>> not
>> have "canconfirm" privileges, etc)?
>
> Just post a comment on the bug that says you'd like to work on the  
> bug.

And/or ask me or Eric Seidel or one of the other people who can hand  
out bugzilla privileges to give you editbugs so you can assign it to  
yourself.

>
>> (4) Finally, the bug life cycle page says, "Each bug is initially
>> assigned to the person designated as owner of the component."  But
>> most new WebKit bugs I see have assignee "webkit-unassigned".  Does
>> the WebKit project have a concept of owner or the equivalent?
>
> Nope.  Various folks have expertise in various areas, but there isn't
> a concept of module ownership like there is in bugs.mozilla.org.

We used to have default assignees per component, but at this point if  
we wanted to refine things we'd probably want to make specialized  
"unassigned" lists for certain bundles of components, so they can be a  
more useful notification mechanism. As someone who's subscribed to  
webkit-unassigned, I don't get much use out of the flood.

Regards,
Maciej