On Thu, 2014-04-24 at 15:30 -0300, Felipe Sateler wrote: > Hi, > > On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Tanu Kaskinen > <tanu.kaskinen at linux.intel.com> wrote: > > On Fri, 2014-04-18 at 15:57 +0000, Felipe Sateler wrote: > >> Background: > >> > >> I recently joined the PA maintenance team in debian (Hi All!). As I have > >> been sifting through old (downstream) bug reports I have forwarded some > >> things (as did Balint for the patches we carry), but tracking their > >> status is not easy, as it requires searching through the mailing list > >> archives to see if the patch had objections, or maybe was resubmitted, or > >> was NACKed. > >> > >> What would be ideal from my POV is a single (unchanging) URL per patch, > >> so that I can point my downstream tracker to that and then I can simply > >> go check if the patch was merged or not. Currently the forward notes > > > > What do you mean by "forward notes"? Is it some file that Debian PA > > maintainers are maintaining? > > The debian bug tracker has a concept of a "forwarded to" address. This > is a freeform text (can be an email, url, or anything). It is very > useful when something is not really a packaging issue but rather an > upstream problem. There are even some tools that notify us when the > bug is fixed if the pointed to url is a known bug tracker (like > bugzilla). > > For example, you can see this bug which I recently forwarded to the bugzilla: > > https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=561780 > > This is useful not only for patches, but also for bugs even when there > is no patch (yet). > > > > >> do > >> not really work as the pointer is to a mailing list archive, and the > >> discussion could have moved on since the first submission. In other > >> words, it is hard to keep track of the stuff we have forwarded. > > > > What scenario are you thinking of when you say "the discussion could > > have moved on since the first submission"? The result of the first > > submission should be visible in the mailing list thread, so if you have > > a link to the patch in the list archive, doesn't that make it pretty > > simple to check the patch status? > > Not really. Mailing lists archives are not very helpful in this > regard. If I submit a patch this month and you (N)ACK it next month > the thread is broken in the web archive. You're just using the wrong web archive :) Check out gmane.org, that's what the patch status wiki page uses for referencing patches. Gmane retains the threading properly (and I also like its overall UI more than Pipermail). > > If another submission has been made in > > a different thread, shouldn't you update the "forward notes" at the same > > time you submit the new patch? > > Yes, if I submit a new version of the patch, then I should update the > forward note. But if a third party does (say, a different/updated > patch fixes the same issue the original patch), they may not update > the forward note. The issue is that changing URLs means having to > remember updating the note, and for that I need to wait for my message > to appear in the archive so I can know the url. Moreover, if I visit > an old bug, I still have to check if the patch was resubmitted at a > later date without updating the forward note. I see your point, although using bugzilla isn't a silver bullet either. If you file a patch via bugzilla, a third party can still send a patch to the mailing list, fixing the same issue without knowing anything about the bug you created. > In any case, I will from now on send patches with git send-email. Thanks! -- Tanu
