On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Mark McEahern wrote:
[Andreas Tille [mailto:tillea@rki.de]]
I know the Debian Bug Tracking System very well, there is Bugzilla and there is a open verison of the SourceForge software available. Why not have thos zope products controlled by those systems?
I think the original poster (OP) was referring to third party products. If that's what OP was asking about, you can hardly "control" what disparate third parties do. You can and you should definitely. Look at Debian or SourceForge. I repeat my example from Debian. Debian does not developing free software (with exception of the tools to run the system itself) but is just distributing it. But if you want a stable system you have to verify the quality of the software which is done using the Bug Tracking System. This means: Tools are provided to help improving the software we (I'm a Debian developer myself) are interested in. The tools are used and upstream authors will be informed about their software. So third party software developers get feedback. This is the way Open Source development works - isn't it?
And I don't see why you'd want to. To increase the quality of Zope products and attract more Zope users because of the well known quality - no matter whether they are third party or not.
Publish then filter--I think that's the winning motto. Should I really repeat in posting examples where this was a really loosing motto. Just browse the archive and you will see that you are wrong here.
Of course, it would be more accurate to say that I *believe* that. <wink> I do not believe. There are proves in the archive that you are wrong.
In any event, a bug tracking system tells you bugs about a given product. How does it provide answers to questions like this:
1. Should I use SiteRoot or VirtualHostMonster? Just grab the stuff which contains less bugs, is frequently updated and has a responsive author in case of trouble.
2. How best to install Zope on Platform X? If a product does not install on a Platform it should is just a bug. Fix it, send the patch to the author. If you get no response hijack it and inform people about it. It wouldn't be the first case that mailing a product author would have the same effect as mailing /dev/null :-(((.
3. What's the most recommended HOWTO on Y? Missing Documentation is a bug as well. We call it severity wishlist but it is just a bug. It is a question of policy. If policy states that each product has to contain a HOWTO such stuff can be easily maintained by a BTS.
Kind regards Andreas.