At Wed, 8 Aug 2007 18:21:26 +0200, Gavin Panella wrote:

Hi,

I previously sent a similar message to webmaster@alsa-project.org, so apologies if you've seen this before.

We've been trying to get Launchpad (*) to watch bugs within your Mantis bug tracker, but we can't get a full CSV export from your installation. I'm guessing it's been disabled or restricted somehow, so I want to make a case for letting Launchpad get at it.

[* I work for Canonical Ltd. (http://www.canonical.com/) on the Launchpad.net site, specifically on the Bug Tracker (a.k.a. Malone). You can verify my signature and status as a Launchpad Developer at https://launchpad.net/~allenap.]

I'll explain from the beginning, so you might want to skip a few paragraphs if you already know something about the Launchpad Bug Tracker.

One feature of Launchpad is that users can add upstream dependencies to a bug report. For example, a display bug in Ubuntu could be filed on Launchpad, but be related to a bug in the core X.Org server project: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/38939

To add a dependency, a Launchpadder clicks "Also affects: Upstream" on the bug report, then enters the URL of the upstream bug report. Launchpad recognises this URL and will then "watch" the bug: once a day, Launchpad will fetch the status of the upstream bug and record it. Any changes are sent to bug subscribers, who might be the maintainers for that package in Ubuntu and who can then update the package with the fix.

[Note that Launchpad only tracks the status of the upstream bug. If a Launchpadder wants to get involved in fixing the upstream bug then Launchpad will direct them to the upstream bug tracker.]

We've recently added support for Mantis BT: Support Mantis as a remote bugtracker (and add ALSA's bugtracker) https://bugs.launchpad.net/malone/+bug/32266

There's also some info here: https://help.launchpad.net/Mantis

The current approach we take is simple: the code logs in to a Mantis instance as a guest and fetches a complete CSV export (via csv_export.php). Many Mantis instances return a complete export of all their bugs to the guest user, but the ALSA bug tracker returns nothing unless the search is narrowed.

This approach is not perfect (*) but it does work right now. If you're happy to do so, we'd be very grateful if you could let us fetch the full export while we're working on improvements. This will, amongst other things, help people working on Ubuntu be more aware of what's going on in the ALSA world.

[* Taking a full export is crude (we get a full export even though we might only be watching a single bug, we only record the status and resolution anyway, and CSV has a plate-full of problems out-of-the- box) so we're already planning improvements, like narrowing searches, page scraping, writing extensions for Mantis, or using MantisConnect. Above all, we need to play nicely with external bug trackers.]

Gavin.

Yes, this sounds cool, and it'd be certainly beneficial for both of us. I forwarded this to Jaroslav, in case he didn't read it...

thanks,

Takashi