about.sgml

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<CHAPTER ID="about">
<TITLE>About This Guide</TITLE>

  <SECTION ID="aboutthisguide">
    <TITLE>Purpose and Scope of this Guide</TITLE>
    <PARA>
      This document was started on September 17, 2000
      by Matthew P. Barnson after a great deal of procrastination updating the Bugzilla FAQ,
      which I left untouched for nearly half a year.
      After numerous complete rewrites and reformatting, it is the document you see today.
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      Despite the lack of updates, Bugzilla is simply the best piece of bug-tracking software
      the world has ever seen.  This document is intended to be the comprehensive guide to 
      the installation, administration, maintenance, and use of the Bugzilla bug-tracking system.
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      This release of the Bugzilla Guide is the <EMPHASIS>2.11</EMPHASIS> release.
      It is so named that it may match the current version of Bugzilla.
      The numbering tradition stems from that used for many free software projects,
      in which <EMPHASIS>even-numbered</EMPHASIS> point releases (1.2, 1.14, etc.)
      are considered "stable releases", intended for public consumption; on the other 
      hand, <EMPHASIS>odd-numbered</EMPHASIS> point releases (1.3, 2.09, etc.)
      are considered unstable <EMPHASIS>development</EMPHASIS> releases intended
      for advanced users, systems administrators, developers, and those who enjoy
      a lot of pain. 
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      Newer revisions of the Bugzilla Guide will follow the numbering conventions of
      the main-tree Bugzilla releases, available at
      <ULINK URL="http://www.mozilla.org/bugs/source.html">Mozilla.org</ULINK>, with
      the exception that intermediate releases will have a minor revision number
      following a period.  For instance, if the current version of Bugzilla is 4.2,
      the current "stable" version of the Bugzilla guide, in, say, it's fifth revision,
      would be numbered "4.2.5".  Got it?  Good.
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      I wrote this in response to the enormous demand for decent Bugzilla documentation.
      I have incorporated instructions from the Bugzilla README, Frequently Asked Questions,
      Database Schema Document, and various mailing lists to create it.
      Chances are, there are glaring errors in this documentation; please contact
      <EMAIL>barnboy@trilobyte.net</EMAIL> to correct them.
    </PARA>
  </SECTION>

  <SECTION ID="copyright">
    <TITLE>Copyright Information</TITLE>
    <BLOCKQUOTE>
      <ATTRIBUTION>Copyright (c) 2000-2001 Matthew P. Barnson</ATTRIBUTION>
      <PARA>
	Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under thei
	terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published 
	by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and 
	with no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the section entitled 
	"GNU Free Documentation LIcense".
      </PARA>
    </BLOCKQUOTE>
    <PARA>
      If you have any questions regarding this document, its' copyright, or publishing this
      document in non-electronic form, please contact <EMAIL>barnboy@trilobyte.net</EMAIL>
    </PARA>
  </SECTION>

  <SECTION ID="disclaimer">
    <TITLE>Disclaimer</TITLE>
    <PARA>
      No liability for the contents of this document can be accepted.
      Use the concepts, examples, and other content at your own risk.
      As this is a new edition of this document, there may be errors
      and inaccuracies that may damage your system.  Use of this document
      may cause your girlfriend to leave you, your cats to pee on your
      furniture and clothing, your computer to cease functioning, your
      boss to fire you, and global thermonuclear war.  Proceed with caution.
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      All copyrights are held by their respective owners, unless specifically
      noted otherwise.  Use of a term in this document should not be regarded
      as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
      In particular, I like to put down Microsoft(tm).  Live with it.
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements,
      with the exception of the term "GNU/Linux".
      Use GNU/Linux.  Love it.  Bathe with it.  It is life and happiness.
      I endorse it wholeheartedly and encourage you to do the same.
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      You are strongly recommended to make a backup of your system before
      installing Bugzilla and at regular intervals thereafter.  Heaven knows
      it's saved my bacon time after time; if you implement any suggestion in 
      this Guide, implement this one!
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      Bugzilla has not undergone a complete security review.
      Security holes probably exist in the code.
      Great care should be taken both in the installation and usage of this software.
      Carefully consider the implications of installing other network services with Bugzilla.
    </PARA>
  </SECTION>

<!-- Section 2: New Versions -->

  <SECTION ID="newversions">
    <TITLE>New Versions</TITLE>
    <PARA>
      This is the initial release of the Bugzilla Guide.
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      This document can be found in the following places:
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      <ITEMIZEDLIST>
	<LISTITEM>
	  <PARA>
	    <ULINK URL="http://www.trilobyte.net/barnsons/">TriloBYTE</ULINK>
	  </PARA>
	</LISTITEM>
	<LISTITEM>
	  <PARA>
	    <ULINK URL="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bugzilla/">Mozilla.org</ULINK>
	  </PARA>
	</LISTITEM>
	<LISTITEM>
	  <PARA>
	    <ULINK URL="http://www.linuxdoc.org/">The Linux Documentation Project</ULINK>
	  </PARA>
	</LISTITEM>
      </ITEMIZEDLIST>
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      The latest version of this document can be checked out via CVS.
      Please follow the instructions available at
      <ULINK URL="http://www.mozilla.org/cvs.html">the Mozilla CVS page</ULINK>,
      and check out the mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/docs/ branch.
    </PARA>
  </SECTION>

  <SECTION ID="credits">
    <TITLE>Credits</TITLE>
    <PARA>
      The people listed below have made enormous contributions to the creation
      of this Guide, through their dedicated hacking efforts,
      numerous e-mail and IRC support sessions,
      and overall excellent contribution to the Bugzilla community:
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      <ULINK URL="mailto://terry@mozilla.org">Terry Weissman</ULINK>
      for initially converting Bugzilla from BugSplat!
      and writing the README upon which this documentation is largely based.
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      <ULINK URL="mailto://tara@tequilarista.org">Tara Hernandez</ULINK> 
      for keeping Bugzilla development going strong after Terry left Mozilla.org
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      <ULINK URL="mailto://dkl@redhat.com">Dave Lawrence</ULINK>
      for providing insight into the key differences between Red Hat's 
      customized Bugzilla, and being largely responsible for the
      "Red Hat Bugzilla" appendix
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      <ULINK URL="mailto://endico@mozilla.org">Dawn Endico</ULINK>
      for being a hacker extraordinaire and putting up with my incessant
      questions and arguments on irc.mozilla.org in #mozwebtools
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      Last but not least, all the members of the
      <ULINK URL="news://news.mozilla.org/netscape/public/mozilla/webtools">
	netscape.public.mozilla.webtools</ULINK> newsgroup.  Without your
      discussions, insight, suggestions, and patches, this could never have happened.
    </PARA>
  </SECTION>
  <SECTION id="contributors">
<TITLE>Contributors</TITLE>
    <PARA>
      Thanks go to these people for significant contributions
      to this documentation (in no particular order):
    </PARA>
    <PARA>
      Zach Lipton (significant textual contributions),
      Andrew Pearson,
      Spencer Smith,
      Eric Hanson,
      Kevin Brannen,
    </PARA>
  </SECTION>
  <SECTION ID="feedback">
    <TITLE>Feedback</TITLE>
    <PARA>
      I welcome feedback on this document.  Without your submissions and input,
      this Guide cannot continue to exist.  Please mail additions, comments, criticisms, etc.
      to <EMAIL>barnboy@trilobyte.net</EMAIL>.  Please send flames to 
      <EMAIL>devnull@localhost</EMAIL>
    </PARA>
  </SECTION>

  <SECTION ID="translations">
    <TITLE>Translations</TITLE>
    <PARA>
      The Bugzilla Guide needs translators!
      Please volunteer your translation into the language of your choice.
      If you will translate this Guide, please notify the members of the mozilla-webtools mailing list at
      <email>mozilla-webtools@mozilla.org</email>.  Since The Bugzilla Guide is also hosted on the
      Linux Documentation Project, you would also do well to notify 
    </PARA>
  </SECTION>

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