Backwards development

[Denis Roy]

This discussion is great... and please interpret my emails as a
concerned (and grateful) user who wants to understand and help, but is
having a hard time. Buzgilla project's roadmap calls for "Push BMO
Customizations into Upstream Bugzilla" [1]  How are casual contributors
supposed to follow along?

Sure, that's open ... but that is not transparent.

Eclipse could just fork on Github and do our own thing according to our
specific needs (sound familiar?) but we believe contributing directly
into the upstream project to be far more beneficial in the long run.
Too bad Mozilla doesn't see it that way.

But as BZ's contribution model is to wait for BMO work to be complete,
there is little hope for the rest of us.


On 20/11/15 16:15, Denis Roy wrote:
>> We've been through this at Eclipse, where many projects had dwindling
>> communities and near-zero external contributions, but we've been
>> able to help turn that around using modern contribution models
>> Gerrit), modern methodologies and careful coaching of projects.

> It would be wonderful if someone had the cycles to do this
> for Bugzilla. I'd like to, but I just don't have the hours.


It is easy. If I were the BZ lead, here is what I would do:

1. Roadmap[1] items must be linked to bugs in Bugzilla. I've requested a
wiki.mozilla.org account and volunteer to do this for you.

2. Use this mailing list to discuss the roadmap with the community.
Always. No back-channels.

3. Use Bugzilla _exclusively_ to discuss the roadmap items. Leverage
Bugzilla's excellent dependency tree to break roadmap items in smaller
chunks if need be

4. Instead of "glob is working on something, ask him" ... encourage glob
to post his progress on the bug, not on a blog somewhere
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=101865#c32

5. Work with the community on getting individual bugs into the codebase.

6. After 2 years, realize that reviewing code patches in Bugzilla is
slowing you down, and implement a code review tool.

7. World dominance?

YMMV



[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Bugzilla:Roadmap



On 11/20/2015 12:57 PM, Mark Côté wrote:
> Again, the Bugzilla project is not administered by Mozilla.  Mozilla
> supports it by providing some resources.  Coincidentally there are some
> Mozilla employees active in the Bugzilla community, but the two are
> functionally separate.  Creating a software foundation for the Bugzilla
> project is a great idea, particularly if it would involve funding to
> employ a product manager and, ideally, some developers.  It would also
> be a large amount of work, and I don't know anyone at the moment who
> would want to lead that.
> 
> As for Mozilla's manifesto, I don't think Bugzilla fits into Mozilla's
> mission at all, which is reflected by it being a separately governed
> project.  Maybe it did early on, when the web was young and every
> open-source web application Mozilla created helped drive the web
> forward.  In my opinion, that is no longer the case--there are a vast
> number of open-source web applications, and so the web apps that Mozilla
> continues to create and maintain mainly act in a supporting role for
> Mozilla's mission.  This includes BMO specifically, which is an
> important tool for projects that are directly related to our mission
> (Firefox, Webmaker, etc.).
> 
> I became an Assistant Project Lead for the Bugzilla project, independent
> of my role as a manager on Mozilla's Engineering Productivity team,
> because I wanted to revive the community, hoping we could develop a more
> productive relationship between Bugzilla and BMO.  I was pretty naive
> about the scope of that work.  There is indeed plenty more the Bugzilla
> community could do to revive the project, but at some point I had to
> admit that the amount of effort and time I would have to put in would
> not have a commensurate impact for Mozilla.  It is a frustrating and
> disappointing situation.
> 
> Mark
> 
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