[Libreoffice-qa] Where should users report bugs?

[bjoern]

Hi,

IMHO:

On Tue, Nov 05, 2013 at 08:46:36AM -0500, Robinson Tryon wrote:
> => What bugs should be reported to our LibreOffice bugtracker?

IMHO, all bugs. It provides much better visibility of the issues at hand. And
yes, I even think bugs that 'happen only with the Ubuntu builds, but not with
the TDF builds' should be reported upstream. Here is why: Most of the time even
those issues are root caused in upstream code, but do not manifest in the
upstream builds. An example is fdo#68210, which:
- was caused by changes in LibreOffice upstream
- did NOT manifest in TDF or Debian build (both were not using mergedlibs)
- did manifest in Ubuntu and Gentoo builds

Pushing this "downstream" to distros too early only slows down communication --
as e.g. devs wont easily comment on other BTSes, and vice versa as accounts are
missing.

> => What bugs should be reported to distros?
> 
>   (Classic Example: Bug filed against EOL version supported in distro)

For Ubuntu: Every bug that affect a supported version of Ubuntu should be
reported to launchpad too, BUT -- and this is the important part -- with remote
tracking the fdo bug[1] (and adding the launchpad bug in "see also:" on fdo). The
only exception would be if its not supported anymore upstream (e.g. LibreOffice
3.5.7).

This double bug tracking is some annoying overhead, so one has to consider if
it is worth is: E.g. will there be downstream dupes of the bug anyway? Will
there be valuable triage info from those (then its likely worth it)? etc.
 
> => What bugs should be reported elsewhere?
> 
>   (e.g. Extension bugs go to extension devs?)

If the root cause is by all likeliness not rooted in our code base (which is
admittedly hard to guess often).
 
> => What plans do we have in place to slurp-up bugs reported downstream?
> 
>   (Can we make it easier for downstream to push bugs to us? Bjoern - Thoughts?)

For launchpad there is launchpadlib:

 https://help.launchpad.net/API/launchpadlib

which allows scripting in Python. This could be using to e.g.:
- find all bugs on launchpad against "LibreOffice (ubuntu)"
- copy the bug description into a new bug on fdo
- link both bugs:
  - mark the fdo bug as a remote tracking bug in lp
  - add the lp bug as a "see also:" on fdo

If someone volunteers on this I suggest getting in contact with Chris
(https://launchpad.net/~penalvch) or Ubuntu Bugcontrol
(https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-bugcontrol).

> => What should we support in the BSA?
> 
>   (The answer to this one depends upon our answers to the rest of the Q's)

IMHO we already have a somewhat decent 'staging' of reports for upstream bugs:
Inexperienced users might ask their incomplete bug reports/support requests on
ask.libreoffice.org without needing anything but OpenID. Most of these reports
are support requests and the rest need additional info to be complete bug
reports anyway. As such, completing the report on ask and then file it on fdo
(linking between both) does not seem too unattractive to me.

Best,

Bjoern