Using MailMan for issue/bug dialogue tracking
Hi All,
*Intro* I'm trying to come up with a best-fit and easy-to-use system to track issues/bugs.
There are plenty of good web-based trackers out there. BugZilla (the old stalwort), Mantis, Trac, FlySpray, etc, etc.
However, my employer produces made-to-order electronics and my division writes embedded C. When a bug report comes in from a customer, what usually follows is a lengthy email dialogue as we try and reproduce the bug, pull in 3rd parties, verify the fix on their side, etc.
I'd like to have that dialogue captured as part of the bug history, and I don't want to tell everyone that they're going to have to use some web interface when they all know and love their email and the "Reply-All" button.
One promising candidate for this functionality is Roundup - the bug tracker recently (Oct 06) adopted by the Python project, though I think it's still in Beta. (See http://psf.upfronthosting.co.za/roundup/meta/) Another which may support it is ZenTrack, but I still need to verify what functionality it offers.
Roundup doesn't quite have the polish and some of the nice-to-haves (like multiple modules/projects) found in more established tools like Trac or Mantis.
*So what I want to do:* Use MailMan as a backend, and once a bug is registered, the Mailman managed address: bugtrack@company.com gets cc'ed on every email that relates to the bug. In the subject line there needs to be a [ID:xxxx] field, but the rest of the subject must be free to change. (even better, be able to cc bugtrack-idxxxx@company.com)
Whoever wants to be in the loop on all bugs can just subscribe to the list. By visiting the web archive interface you can see exactly what's going on. And by including a link to a particular thread (automatically?) in the Trac/Mantis database you can link there directly.
*Where I need some advice:* How does MailMan sort out threads. Does it use the whole subject line, and resolves tree depth from the number of "Re:"'s? How easy/hard would it be to make the thread sorter sensitive only to an [ID:xxxx] tag in the subject?
Is the idea of bugtrack-idxxxx@company.com an easy-to-implement option?
I'm pretty sure that MailMan will allow anonymous/non-subscriber posts, but can I toss out all email which hasn't been correctly tagged.
Finally (and this is probably in the FAQ, so I'm being lazy by asking...) - what is the best mechanism of backing up a complete MailMan installation?
Many thanks,
Simon
At 11:51 AM +0200 3/29/07, Simon Hoffe wrote:
We're working on it. I have some more changes to the mail system for python.org that need to be implemented before we can take the next step.
Mailman uses the contents of the "References:" and "In-Reply-To:" headers, not the "Subject:" line, although it will do some trimming on the subject line to try to keep it more sane.
Is the idea of bugtrack-idxxxx@company.com an easy-to-implement option?
Within Mailman? No, not really. At least, not so far as I know.
Why not just use a different topic for each bug? That way people who want information on all bugs can subscribe to the list and not track specific topics, while others who want information on just that one bug can track that one topic.
I'm pretty sure that MailMan will allow anonymous/non-subscriber posts,
Yup. It's just a configuration option.
Of course, then you have to worry about everyone getting hit by spam which is addressed to the list.
Yup, that's in the FAQ.
-- Brad Knowles <brad@shub-internet.org>, Consultant & Author LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu> Slides from Invited Talks: <http://tinyurl.com/tj6q4>
At 11:51 AM +0200 3/29/07, Simon Hoffe wrote:
We're working on it. I have some more changes to the mail system for python.org that need to be implemented before we can take the next step.
Mailman uses the contents of the "References:" and "In-Reply-To:" headers, not the "Subject:" line, although it will do some trimming on the subject line to try to keep it more sane.
Is the idea of bugtrack-idxxxx@company.com an easy-to-implement option?
Within Mailman? No, not really. At least, not so far as I know.
Why not just use a different topic for each bug? That way people who want information on all bugs can subscribe to the list and not track specific topics, while others who want information on just that one bug can track that one topic.
I'm pretty sure that MailMan will allow anonymous/non-subscriber posts,
Yup. It's just a configuration option.
Of course, then you have to worry about everyone getting hit by spam which is addressed to the list.
Yup, that's in the FAQ.
-- Brad Knowles <brad@shub-internet.org>, Consultant & Author LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu> Slides from Invited Talks: <http://tinyurl.com/tj6q4>
participants (2)
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Brad Knowles -
Simon Hoffe