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This is as bad of an idea now as it has been every previous time it
has been suggested.<br>
<br>
1) Many of the bugs which get filed against Fedora are just that,
Fedora bugs, not bugs in upstream packages. Missing file in a
package? Fedora bug. Package linked against the wrong version?
Fedora bug. Bug about upgrading to a new version of an upstream
package? Fedora bug. Bug in the Fedora installer? Fedora bug.<br>
<br>
I can't imagine where you expect these bugs to go if Fedora "move[s]
entirely away from Red Hat bugzilla as well as away from [the]
concept of hosting our own." If that were to occur, then the bugs in
Fedora-specific packages such as the installer would have,
literally, nowhere else to go. And I assure you that upstream
package maintainers will not want Fedora-specific bugs in their bug
databases.<br>
<br>
2) Most Fedora users are not developers. If they have to jump
through hoops to figure out where to report bugs, then they won't
report the bugs. The "one-stop shop" that Red Hat bugzilla provides
as a point of entry for all bugs that users encounter in Fedora is a
huge, huge, value-add service. Getting rid of it would do
catastrophic damage to Fedora's ability to get feedback about
problems from end users who aren't power users and developers. Is
Fedora trying to simply write off such users as irrelevant?<br>
<br>
3) I am not sure what you mean when you make the generalized
statement that the current system of package maintainers triaging
bugs, soliciting additional information from users as needed, and
reporting upstream as needed, "is not working." I admit that there
are some package maintainers who don't do a good enough job of this,
but there are also many package maintainers who do it extremely
well; in fact, I'd say that the majority of bugs I file are dealt
with appropriately by their maintainers. If some package maintainers
aren't doing their jobs, then the solution is to teach them how to
do their jobs better and replace the ones who can't, not to throw
the baby out with the bathwater by getting rid of the entire
bug-tracking system because some of the people participating in it
are not doing as good a job as they should.<br>
<br>
4) As others have pointed out, there is a huge amount of value in
being able to track how Fedora is doing at handling the bugs <i>that
are reported by Fedora users.</i> While it's true that the Fedora
bug database doesn't have every bug in every upstream package in it,
there will <i>never</i> be <i>any</i> bug-tracking system which
has that global view, so that's a red herring. What the Fedora bug
database tells us is what bugs are being encountered and reported
specifically by Fedora users, which is the best possible metric of
the quality of the Fedora release. The fact that upstream bugs that
Fedora users don't encounter don't end up in the Fedora database is
a good thing and an argument in favor of keeping the Fedora
database, not a bad thing.<br>
<br>
Mint has a bug database. Ubuntu has a bug database. Mageia has a bug
database. Debian has a bug database. Those are the <a
href="http://www.zdnet.com/the-most-popular-end-user-linux-distributions-are-7000017223/">top
four Linux distributions currently in use</a>. Fedora is number
five. By all means, if you want Fedora to go even lower in the
rankings, buck the trend the top four all seem comfortable with and
get rid of the bug database.<br>
<br>
jik<br>
<br>
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