[Libreoffice] FOSDEM feedback, re: Improved bug filing form / flow

[Dirk Haun]

I attended the "Easy hacks to get involved with"[1] session at FOSDEM.
The item "Improved bug filing form / flow"[2] from the wiki page that
Michael mentioned reminded me of similar issues that the Mozilla guys
apparently had, as mentioned in their presentation[3] on Saturday.

Effectively, "SUMO" as they call it, is a support platform that
provides a customized workflow guiding users who are looking for a
solution to a problem. It will lead them to knowledge base articles or
lets them post a question (in the process bringing up similar
questions that have been asked before) or takes them to a live chat.
Filing a bug would be the last resort.

This is what's running on http://support.mozilla.com/ and lets them
handle (IIRC) 11 million support issues per month.

The good: It's all open source[4]. The bad: It's not "productized"
yet, i.e. it's currently tailor-made for Mozilla's use case. But they
plan to roll it out as a separate product for others to use. "Wait a
few months" was the answer we got.

So, I guess what I'm suggesting is that instead of reinventing the
wheel, someone who's interested in picking up that task may want to
look into this existing system. Check what it does, collect the
requirements that LibreOffice has and possibly cooperate with the
Mozilla folks.

bye, Dirk

[1] http://fosdem.org/2011/schedule/event/easyhacks
[2] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Easy_Hacks#Improved_bug_filing_form_.2F_flow
[3] http://fosdem.org/2011/schedule/event/mozilla_sumo
[4] https://github.com/mozilla/kitsune