[Mesa-dev] Switching to Gitlab Issues instead of Bugzilla?

[Rob Clark]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2019 at 12:02 PM Kenneth Graunke <kenneth at whitecape.org> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> As a lot of you have probably noticed, Bugzilla seems to be getting a
> lot of spam these days - several of us have been disabling a bunch of
> accounts per day, sweeping new reports under the rug, hiding comments,
> etc.  This bug spam causes emails to be sent (more spam!) and then us
> to have to look at ancient bugs that suddenly have updates.
>
> I think it's probably time to consider switching away from Bugzilla.
> We are one of the few projects remaining - Mesa, DRM, and a few DDX
> drivers are still there, but almost all other projects are gone:
>
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi
>
> Originally, I was in favor of retaining Bugzilla just to not change too
> many processes all at once.  But we've been using Gitlab a while now,
> and several of us have been using Gitlab issues in our personal repos;
> it's actually pretty nice.
>
> Some niceities:
>
> - Bug reporters don't necessarily need to sign up for an account
>   anymore.  They can sign in with their Gitlab.com, Github, Google,
>   or Twitter accounts.  Or make one as before.  This may be nicer for
>   reporters that don't want to open yet another account just to report
>   an issue to us.
>
> - Anti-spam support is actually maintained.  Bugzilla makes it near
>   impossible to actually delete garbage, Gitlab makes it easier.  It
>   has a better account creation hurdle than Bugzilla's ancient captcha,
>   and Akismet plug-ins for handling spam.
>
> - The search interface is more modern and easier to use IMO.
>
> - Permissions & accounts are easier - it's the same unified system.
>
> - Easy linking between issues and MRs - mention one in the other, and
>   both get updated with cross-links so you don't miss any discussion.
>
> - Milestone tracking
>
>   - This could be handy for release trackers - both features people
>     want to land, and bugs blocking the release.
>
>   - We could also use it for big efforts like direct state access,
>     getting feature parity with fglrx, or whatnot.
>
> - Khronos switched a while ago as well, so a number of us are already
>   familiar with using it there.
>
> Some cons:
>
> - Moving bug reports between the kernel and Mesa would be harder.
>   We would have to open a bug in the other system.  (Then again,
>   moving bugs between Mesa and X or Wayland would be easier...)

If that was a concern, we could setup a kernel gitlab project that has
an empty git repository (at least until we are ready to move drm git
tree).

> What do people think?  If folks are in favor, Daniel can migrate
> everything for us, like he did with the other projects.  If not,
> I'd like to hear what people's concerns are.
>

yes, please, let's move!

BR,
-R