On Fri, 2011-09-02 at 13:54 -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
Hum, I didn't realize our resolutions were so customized, I
thought they
were the upstream ones; this is what I've been told when discussing
custom resolutions in the past. It's certainly something you could
propose as an enhancement by filing a bug against Bugzilla, then.
OK, I will do that and post the link here. Any assessment of difficulty
provided by the Bugzilla team can inform a decision between 2a and 2b.
> 2b. Co-opt an existing little-used custom resolution, e.g.,
CANTFIX
> (semantically questionable on its face, but maybe reasonable in light of
> the explanation on
>
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/page.cgi?id=fields.html#status ).
As noted at the top of that page, that is the policy for RHEL, not for
Fedora. Fedora policy is
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/BugStatusWorkFlow#CLOSED . It
states only "The resolutions CANTFIX, WONTFIX, and WORKSFORME are for
use by maintainers only, and are self-explanatory."
You are right. But taking a step back, the project has the power to
change the policy to best meet its needs. My point stands that the
resolution is little-used (less than 2% [1]), and its use for expired
bugs would harmonize with the current RHEL policy. None of my 131 bugs
have been marked CANTFIX [2]; maintainers seem to find that the
better-known WONTFIX and NOTABUG cover the range of cases.
[1]
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/report.cgi?x_axis_field=version&y_axis_fi...)
[2]
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/report.cgi?x_axis_field=version&y_axis_fi...
> 3. Do not change the bug state, and have maintainers apply the
same
> conditions now used by the bug zapper on all of their searches.
> Reducing mutable state is generally good in that it reduces the possible
> ways for things to get out of whack. But then it takes more work to see
> whether a non-CLOSED bug is expired.
> 3a. Like #3, but make it easier with a virtual EXPIRED resolution.
> Probably an undesirable level of customization to Bugzilla.
> 4. Add an "Expired" keyword or custom field, use it, and:
> 4a. Continue to close the bugs WONTFIX. Ugh, but I can use the
> keyword/field in search and maybe even get it to show as a column on
> search results.
> 4b. Do not change the status, and have maintainers use the
> keyword/field in their search.
I think if we're going to change this, the only sensible change is to
use a different CLOSED resolution. All the others seem like hacks which
are likely to cause more trouble/confusion than they resolve.
Fair assessment.
We clearly
want to bugs to be CLOSED, not open with a quasi-closed keyword or
whiteboard field.
I'm not sure who "we" is, but I disagree. The generally accepted
definition of CLOSED is that the resolution is final unless subsequent
events invalidate the original rationale. (C.f. the RHEL policy: "The
bug is considered dead, the resolution is correct.") All it takes for
an expired bug to be reopened is for someone to have enough interest to
retest it in a maintained Fedora version. To claim that this meets the
definition of CLOSED is a big stretch. I believe that "expired" should
properly be its own major state alongside "open" and "closed", but we
have alternatives that are less radical and still solve the immediate
problem with search.
--
Matt