[GRASS-dev] trac management - was ticket #110

[Hamish]

Glynn:
> Can the messages which trac sends to the list have the reporter's
> address added to the To: or CC: fields? That way, they would normally
> receive any follow-ups via email.

note if you respond in the trac system you are automatically added to
that bug's cc list. so "tourist" posters can participate in that bug
"thread".
(aside: I am very please with the new ML's ability to only send me 1
email if it sees I am subscribed to the ML and am in the To or Cc field.
I think it is not possible, but it would be great if could do that too)


> > We cannot expect people like him who follow 10+ projects in parallel
> > to voluntarily scan our archive.
> 
> OTOH, requiring that discussions are conducted via trac for the
> benefit of non-subscribers is going too far in the other direction,
> IMHO.

hosting the thread in trac is also for the benefit of keeping the bug's
history clear. we are of course free to discuss the bug in depth in the
mailing list and only post highlights into the bug report. (which is the
solution we all seem to be after, be it by auto-cc or auto-URL)


> > > Would it be possible for trac to automatically add a link for the
> > > mailing-list thread to the ticket?
> > 
> > In theory yes:
> > http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/EmailtoTracScript
> 
> That would be ideal, as it would eliminate the need for developers to
> conduct discussions via trac.

(what I was talking about re the old RT system in my last post)

> However, all I was actually asking about was having a link to the
> archived email added to the trac page. That would at least allow
> people to find the discussion easily.

and add less tangential clutter to the bug report 

> I suspect that this isn't trivial, as the email probably doesn't
> appear in the archive until after trac has finished handling the
> submission. So it probably can't be done in the main trac script;
> however, it might be possible for the list manager to identify emails
> which originate from trac and lack an In-Reply-To: header, and add a
> reply to the appropriate trac entry.

AFAIR of how the old system worked, the RT system was subscribed to
grass5#baylor,edu and would parse all incoming messages for [RT #1234] in
the subject line, then discard or apply as needed. As long as the RT
system is set up to only accept email directly from the OSGeo server
(with some sort of spoof-protection), the idea seems viable to me.


> Since the web become popular, I've probably encountered hundreds of
> web-based communication systems (online "forums", bug trackers, etc). 
> And in every single instance where I've tried to use them for an
> actual discussion (as opposed to: post a request, get a reply, end of
> discussion), I end up wondering if I'm the only person in the world
> who uses email.
>
> Because in all that time, I haven't found even one web-based system
> that isn't substantially less convenient than email.

Full agreement.

The goal is smooth & efficient communication channels so we can put our
finite energy towards solving code problems not spend our time bogged
down working around infrastructure. I think we actually do pretty well
there.

But I accept the benefit of also having bugs in a tracker, some sort of
human-readable hybrid between a SCM and a freeform mailing list.
Especially if the ml is high traffic to begin with, stuff fades away into
yesterday's noise very quickly.


2c more,
Hamish



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