On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 04:19:56PM +0000, Bird, Tim wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > > > Hi Thorsten, > > > > On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 11:35:16AM +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote: > > > On 29.09.22 18:42, Laurent Pinchart wrote: > > > > On Thu, Sep 29, 2022 at 10:54:17AM -0400, Slade Watkins wrote: > > > >>> On Sep 29, 2022, at 10:22 AM, Artem S. Tashkinov <aros@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > > >>> > > > >>> I've mentioned several times already that mailing lists are _even worse_ > > > >>> in terms of reporting issues. Developers get emails and simply ignore > > > >>> them (for a multitude of reasons). > > > >> > > > >> It’s 100% true that emails get _buried_ as waves of them come in (LKML > > > >> itself gets hundreds upon hundreds a day, as I’m sure all of you know) > > > >> and it just isn’t something I personally see as viable, especially for > > > >> issues that may or may not be high priority. > > > > > > > > E-mails are not that bad to report issues, but they can't provide the > > > > core feature that any bug tracker oughts to have: tracking. There's no > > > > way, with the tools we have at the moment (including public-inbox, b4 > > > > and lei), to track the status of bug reports and fixes. > > > > > > Well, I'd disagree partially with that, as my regression tracking bot > > > "regzbot" > > > (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://gitlab.com/knurd42/regzbot/- > > /blob/main/docs/getting_started.md__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!7f8O2QaGyWgxASwg1_bxsV53uWPINzzBa_MLMZMooa6qL6jdk8ZBVYrB_ > > mypjw0H3yv5IPdNJ2qQThzMLKbrOUQMFMO1x2V2$ > > > ; https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://linux- > > regtracking.leemhuis.info/regzbot/mainline/__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!7f8O2QaGyWgxASwg1_bxsV53uWPINzzBa_MLMZMooa6qL6jdk8Z > > BVYrB_mypjw0H3yv5IPdNJ2qQThzMLKbrOUQMFKROzSJY$ ) does > > > exactly does that: tracking, by connect the dots (e.g. monitoring > > > replies to a report as well recording when patches are posted or > > > committed that link to the report using Link: tags), while making sure > > > nothing important is forgotten. But sure, it's still very rough and > > > definitely not a full bug-tracker (my goal is/was to not create yet > > > another one) and needs quite a bit of hand holding from my side. And I > > > only use it for regressions and not for bugs (on purpose). > > > > Patchwork does something similar for patches, and I agree that it would > > be possible to use e-mail to manage and track bug reports with tools on > > top (and don't worry, I'm not asking for regzbot to be turned into a bug > > tracker :-)). It however has to rely on lots of heuristics at the > > moment, as the data we exchange over e-mail is free-formed and lacks > > structure. I've been dreaming of support for structured data in e-mails, > > but that's a pipe dream really. > > E-mails sent from a web interface could have as much structure as you'd like. > So one avenue would be to set up a nice interface for bug reporting, that just > delivered the form data in e-mail format to the proposed bug-receiving mail list. > > Also, if an e-mail receiver (something automated) gave a quick response on missing fields, I think > you could quickly train users (even first-time bug submitters) to provide required > data, even if they're sending from a free-form e-mail client. In my dream, we could even teach some mail clients to do so. There's a bit of chicken and egg issue of course, but if the form data is in a human-writable form, it may be possible to start on the server side first, and then address clients. -- Regards, Laurent Pinchart
