Open Stack

On Thu, 2015-04-02 at 11:32 +0200, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> Sean Dague wrote:
> > I just spent a chunk of the morning purging out some really old
> > Incomplete bugs because about 9 months ago we disabled the auto
> > expiration bit in launchpad -
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+configure-bugtracker
> > 
> > This is a manually grueling task, which by looking at these bugs, no one
> > else is doing. I'd like to turn that bit back on so we can actually get
> > attention focused on actionable bugs.
> > 
> > Any objections here?
> 
> No objection, just a remark:
> 
> One issue with auto-expiration is that it usually results in the
> following story:
> 
> 1. Someone reports bug
> 2. Triager notices NEW bug, asks reporter for details, sets INCOMPLETE
> 3. Reporter provides details
> 4. Triager does not notice reply on bug since they ignore INCOMPLETE
> 5. Bug expires after n months and disappears forever
> 6. Reporter is frustrated and won't ever submit issues again
> 
> The problem is of course at step 4, not at step 5. Auto-expiration is
> very beneficial if your bug triaging routine includes checking Launchpad
> for "INCOMPLETE bugs with an answer" regularly. If nobody does this very
> boring task, then auto-expiration can be detrimental.
> 
> Is anyone in Nova checking for "INCOMPLETE bugs with an answer" ? That's
> task 4 in https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/BugTriage ...

This actually looks to be a problem in the workflow to me.

The OpenStack Incomplete/Confirmed seem to map roughly to the bugzilla
Need Info/Open states.  The difference is that in bugzilla, a reporter
can clear the Need Info flag.  This is also what needs to happen in
OpenStack (so the reporter doesn't need to wait on anyone looking at
thier input to move the bug on).

I propose allowing the reporter to move the bug to Confirmed when they
supply the information making it incomplete.  If the triager thinks this
is wrong, they can set it back to incomplete again.  This has the net
effect that Incomplete needs no real review, it marks bugs the reporter
doesn't care enough about to reply... and these can be auto expired.

This would make the initial state diagram


+---+    Review     +----------+
|New|-------------->|Incomplete|
+---+               +----------+
  |                     ^   |
  |    Still Needs Info |   | Reporter replies
  |                     |   v
  |     Review      +---------+
  +---------------->|Confirmed|
                    +---------+


James