<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >The Future of Bugzilla</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.61 "><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="The Bugzilla Guide" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Tinderbox/Tinderbox2" HREF="tinderbox.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Bugzilla Variants and Competitors" HREF="variants.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="CHAPTER" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >The Bugzilla Guide</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="tinderbox.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="variants.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="CHAPTER" ><H1 ><A NAME="FUTURE" >Chapter 6. The Future of Bugzilla</A ></H1 ><TABLE BORDER="0" BGCOLOR="#6495ED" WIDTH="100%" ><TR ><TD ><FONT COLOR="#000000" ><PRE CLASS="SYNOPSIS" >Bugzilla's Future. Much of this is the present, now.</PRE ></FONT ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><P > Bugzilla's future is a constantly-changing thing, as various developers <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"scratch an itch"</SPAN > when it comes to functionality. Thus this section is very malleable, subject to change without notice, etc. You'll probably also notice the lack of formatting. I apologize that it's not quite as readable as the rest of the Guide. </P ><P > <P CLASS="LITERALLAYOUT" > Bugzilla Blue Sky<br> <br> Customisability<br> <br> One of the major stumbling blocks of Bugzilla has been that it is too<br> rigid and does not adapt itself well enough to the needs of an<br> organisation. This has led to organisations making changes to the<br> Bugzilla code that need to be redone each new version of Bugzilla.<br> Bugzilla should attempt to move away from this to a world where this<br> doesn't need to occur.<br> <br> Most of the subsections in this section are currently explicit design<br> goals for the "Bugzilla 3" rewrite. This does not necessarily mean<br> that they will not occur before them in Bugzilla 2, but most are<br> significant undertakings.<br> <br> Field Customisation<br> <br> Many installations wish to customise the fields that appear on bug<br> reports. Current versions of Bugzilla offer limited<br> customisability. In particular, some fields can be turned off.<br> <br> However, many administrators wish to add their own fields, and rename<br> or otherwise modify existing fields. An architecture that supports<br> this would be extraordinarily useful.<br> <br> Indeed, many fields work similarly and could be abstracted into "field<br> types", so that an administrator need write little or no code to<br> support the new fields they desire.<br> <br> Possible field types include text (eg status whiteboard), numbers,<br> dates (eg report time), accounts (eg reporter, qa, cc), inter-bug<br> relationships (dependencies, duplicates), option groups (platform, os,<br> severity, priority, target milestone, version) etc.<br> <br> Ideally an administrator could configure their fields through a<br> Bugzilla interface that requires no code to be added. However, it is<br> highly unlikely this ideal will never be met, and in a similar way<br> that office applications have scripting languages, Bugzilla should<br> allow new field types to be written.<br> <br> Similarly, a common desire is for resolutions to be added or removed.<br> <br> Allocations<br> <br> ?<br> <br> Option Groups<br> <br> ?<br> <br> Relations<br> <br> ?<br> <br> Database Integrity<br> <br> Furthermore, it is desirable for administrators to be able to specify<br> rules that must or should apply between the fields on a bug report.<br> <br> For example, you might wish to specify that a bug with status ASSIGNED<br> must have a target milestone field that that is not untargetted. Or<br> that a bug with a certain number of votes should get ASSIGNED. Or<br> that the QA contact must be different from the assignee.<br> <br> "Must" relationships could be implemented by refusing to make changes<br> that violate the relationships, or alternatively, automatically<br> updating certain fields in order to satisfy the criteria. Which<br> occurs should be up to the administrator.<br> <br> "Should" relationships could be implemented by a combination of<br> emitting warnings on the process bug page, the same on notification<br> mails, or emitting periodic whine mails about the situation. Again,<br> which occurs should be up to the administrator.<br> <br> It should also be possible for whine mails to be emitted for "must"<br> relationships, as they might become violated through direct database<br> access, Bugzilla bugs, or because they were there before the<br> relationship was enforced.<br> <br> As well as implementing intra-bug constraints, it would be useful to<br> create inter-bug constraints. For example, a bug that is dependent on<br> another bug should not have an earlier milestone or greater priority<br> than that bug.<br> <br> Database Adaptability<br> <br> Often an administrator desires that fields adapt to the values of<br> other fields. For example, the value of a field might determine the<br> possible values of another field or even whether it appears (whether<br> it is "applicable").<br> <br> Limited adaptability is present in Bugzilla 2, and only on the<br> "Product" field:<br> * The possible values of the target milestone, version and component<br> fields depend on the product.<br> * UNCONFIRMED can be turned off for specific products.<br> * Voting can be configured differently or turned off for different<br> products, and there is a separate user vote limits for each<br> product.<br> <br> It would be good if more adaptability was present, both in terms of<br> all fields relying on the product, as well as the ability to adapt<br> based on the value of all fields.<br> <br> Example ???<br> <br> General adaptability raises the issue of circular references between<br> fields causing problems. One possible solution to this is to place<br> the fields in a total ordering and require a field refer only to the<br> previous fields.<br> <br> In Bugzilla 2, changing the product of a bug meant a second page would<br> appear that allowed you to choose a new milestone, component and<br> version, as those fields adapted themselves to the new product. This<br> page could be generalised to support all instances where:<br> * a field value must or might be changed because the possible values<br> have changed<br> * is going to drop off because it it is no longer applicable, and<br> this should be confirmed<br> * must be specified because it is suddenly applicable, and the<br> default value, if one exists, might not be acceptable<br> <br> Database Independence<br> <br> Currently Bugzilla only runs on the MySQL database. It would be<br> desirable for Bugzilla to run on other databases, because:<br> * Organisations may have existing database products they use and<br> would prefer to run a homogenous environment.<br> * Databases each have their own shortcomings, including MySQL. An<br> administrator might choose a database that would work better with<br> their Bugzilla.<br> <br> This raises the possibility that we could use features that are only<br> present in some databases, by appropriately falling back. For<br> example, in the MySQL world, we live without:<br> * record-level locking, instead we use table-level locking<br> * referential and record constraints, instead we checking code<br> * subselects, instead we use multiple queries and redundant "caches"<br> <br> Multiple Front Ends<br> <br> Currently Bugzilla is manipulated via the Web, and notifies via<br> E-Mail. It would be desirable for Bugzilla to easily support various<br> front ends.<br> <br> There is no reason that Bugzilla could not be controlled via a whole<br> range of front ends, including Web, E-Mail, IRC, ICQ, etc, and<br> similarly for how it notifies. It's also possible that we could<br> introduce a special Bugzilla client that uses its own protocol, for<br> maximum user productivity.<br> <br> Indeed a request reply might be returned via a totally different<br> transport method than was use to submit the request.<br> <br> Internationalisation<br> <br> Bugzilla currently supports only English. All of the field names,<br> user instructions, etc are written in English. It would be desirable<br> to allow "language packs" so Bugzilla can be easily used in<br> non-English speaking locales.<br> <br> To a degree field customisation supports this, because administrators<br> could specify their own fields names anyway. However, there will<br> always be some basic facilities not covered by this, and it is<br> desirable that the administrator's interface also is<br> internationalisable.<br> <br> Better Searching<br> <br> General Summary Reports<br> <br> Sometimes, the normal querying page leaves a lot to be desired. There<br> are other facilities already in place or which people have asked for:<br> <br> Most Doomed Reports - All Bugs or All Bugs In A Product, Categorised<br> On Assignee, Shows and Counts Number of Bugs For Each Assignee<br> Most Voted For Bugs - All Bugs, Categorised On Product, Shows Top Ten<br> Bugs Voters Most Want Fixed<br> Number of Open Bugs For An Assignee - Bug List, Categorised On<br> Developers, Counts Number of Bugs In Category<br> <br> The important thing to realise is that people want categorised reports<br> on all sorts of things - a general summary report.<br> <br> In a categorised report, you choose the subset of bugs you wish to<br> operate on (similar to how you would specify a query), and then<br> categorise them on one or more fields.<br> <br> For each category you display the count of the number of things in<br> that category. You can optionally display the bugs themselves, or<br> leave them out, just showing the counts. And you can optionally limit<br> the number of things (bugs or subcategories) that display in each<br> category.<br> <br> Such a mechanism would let you do all of the above and more.<br> Applications of this mechanism would only be recognised once it was<br> implemented.<br> <br> Related Bugs<br> <br> It would be nice to have a field where you could enter other bugs<br> related to the current bug. It would be handy for navigation and<br> possibly even finding duplicates.<br> <br> Column Specification Support<br> <br> Currently bug lists use the columns that you last used. This doesn't<br> work well for "prepackaged queries", where you followed a link. You<br> can probably add a column by specifying a sort column, but this is<br> difficult and suboptimal.<br> <br> Furthermore, I find that when I want to add a column to a bug list,<br> it's usually a one off and I would prefer it to go away for the next<br> query. Hence, it would be nice to specify the columns that appear on<br> the bug list (and general summary report) pages. The default query<br> mechanism should be able to let you specify your default columns.<br> <br> Advanced Querying Redesign<br> <br> ?<br> <br> Keywords<br> <br> People have a need to apply tags to bugs. In the beginning, people<br> placed designators in the summary and status whiteboard. However,<br> these fields were not designed for that, and so there were many flaws<br> with this system:<br> * They pollute the field with information that was never intended to<br> be present.<br> * Removing them with a bulk change is a difficult problem that has<br> too many pitfalls to implement.<br> * You can easily get the capitalisation wrong.<br> <br> Then dependencies were introduced (when?), and people realised that<br> they could use them for "tracking bugs". Again, dependencies were not<br> designed for that, and so there were more flaws, albeit different<br> ones, including:<br> * They aren't really bugs, so it's difficult to distinguish issues<br> from bugs.<br> * They can pollute bugs counts, and you must somehow exclude them<br> from queries.<br> * There is a whole lot of useless information on them. They have an<br> assignee but there is nothing to fix, and that person can get<br> whined at by Bugzilla. They have target milestones which must be<br> manually maintained. And so on.<br> <br> Finally, keywords were introduced (when?) for this purpose to remove<br> the need for these two systems. Unfortunately, the simple keywords<br> implementation was itself lacking in certain features provided by the<br> two previous systems, and has remained almost unchanged since its<br> inception. Furthermore, it could not be forseen that in large<br> installations, the sheer number of keywords could become unwieldly and<br> could lead to a movement back to the other systems.<br> <br> The keywords system was the right idea, however, and it remains so.<br> Fixing the keywords system is one of the most important Bugzilla<br> issues.<br> <br> Bringing Keywords Up To Par<br> <br> For the most part, keywords are very good at what they do. It is easy<br> to add and remove them (unlike summary/whiteboard designators), we can<br> simply see what issues are present on a bug (unlike tracking bugs),<br> and we do not confuse bugs with issues (unlike tracking bugs).<br> <br> However, there are still some "regressions" in the keyword system over<br> previous systems:<br> * Users wish to view the "dependency forest" of a keyword. While a<br> dependency tree is of one bug, a dependency forest is of a bug<br> list, and consists of a dependency tree for each member of the bug<br> list. Users can work around this with tracking bugs by creating a<br> tracking bug and viewing the dependency tree of that tracking bug.<br> * Users wish to specify the keywords that initially apply to a bug,<br> but instead they must edit the bug once it has already been<br> submitted. They can work around this with summary designators,<br> since they specify the summary at reporting time.<br> * Users wish to store or share a bug list that contains a keywords<br> column. Hence they wish to be able to specify what columns appear<br> in the bug list URL, as mentioned earlier. They can work around<br> this using summary designators, since almost all bug lists have a<br> summary column.<br> * Users wish to be able to view keywords on a bug list. However<br> often they are only interested in a small number of keywords.<br> Having a bug list with a keywords column means that all keywords<br> will appear on a bug list. This can take a substantial amount of<br> space where a bug has a lot of keywords, since the table columns<br> in Bugzilla adjust to the largest cell in that column. Hence<br> users wish to be able to specify which keywords should appear in<br> the bug list. In a very real sense, each keyword is a field unto<br> itself. Users can work around this by using summary designators,<br> since they keywords will share the space in the summary column.<br> * Users wish to know when bugs with a specific issue are resolved.<br> Hence they wish to be able to receive notifications on all the<br> bugs with a specific keyword. The introduction a generic watching<br> facility (also for things like watching all bugs in a component)<br> would achieve this. Users can work around this by using tracking<br> bugs, as dependencies have an existing way of detecting fixes to<br> bug a bug was blocked by.<br> <br> Dealing With The Keyword Overload<br> <br> At the time of writing, the mozilla.org installation has approximately<br> 100 keywords, and many more would be in use if the keywords system<br> didn't have the problems it does.<br> <br> Such a large number of keywords introduces logistical problems:<br> * It must be easy for someone to learn what a keyword means. If a<br> keyword is buried within a lot of other keywords, it can be<br> difficult to find.<br> * It must be easy to see what keywords are on a bug. If the number<br> of keywords is large, then this can be difficult.<br> <br> These lead some people to feel that there are "too many keywords".<br> <br> These problems are not without solutions however. It is harder to<br> find a list of designators or tracking bugs than it is a list of<br> keywords.<br> <br> The essential problem is it needs to be easy to find the keywords<br> we're interested in through the mass of keywords.<br> <br> Keyword Applicability<br> <br> As has been previously mentioned, it is desirable for fields to be<br> able to adapt to the values of other fields. This is certainly true<br> for keywords. Many keywords are simply not relevant because of the<br> bugs product, component, etc.<br> <br> Hence, by introducing keyword applicability, and not displaying<br> keywords that are not relevant to the current bug, or clearly<br> separating them, we can make the keyword overload problem less<br> significant.<br> <br> Currently when you click on "keywords" on a bug, you get a list of all<br> bugs. It would be desirable to introduce a list of keywords tailored<br> to a specific bug, that reports, in order:<br> * the keywords currently on the bug<br> * the keywords not currently on the bug, but applicable to the bug<br> * optionally, the keywords not applicable to the bug<br> <br> This essentially orders the keywords into three groups, where each<br> group is more important than the previous, and therefore appears<br> closer to the top.<br> <br> Keyword Grouping & Ordering<br> <br> We could further enhance both the global and bug specific keyword list<br> by grouping keywords. We should always have a "flat" view of<br> keywords, but other ways of viewing the keywords would be useful too.<br> <br> If keyword applicability was implemented, we could group keywords<br> based on their "applicability condition". Keywords that apply to all<br> bugs could be separated from keywords that apply to a specific<br> product, both on the global keyword list and the keyword list of a bug<br> that is in that product.<br> <br> We could specify groups of our own. For example, many keywords are in<br> a mutually exclusive group, essentially like radio buttons in a user<br> interface. This creates a natural grouping, although other groupings<br> occur (which depends on your keywords).<br> <br> It is possible that we could use collapsing/expanding operations on<br> "twisties" to only should the groups we are interested in.<br> <br> And instead of grouping keywords, we could order them on some metric<br> of usefulness, such as:<br> * when the keyword was last added to a bug<br> * how many bugs the keyword is on<br> * how many open bugs the keyword is on<br> <br> Opting Out Of Keywords<br> <br> Not all people are going to care about all keywords. Therefore it<br> makes sense that you may wish to specify which keywords you are<br> interested in, either on the bug page, or on notifications.<br> <br> Other keywords will therefore not bother users who are not interested<br> in them.<br> <br> Keyword Security<br> <br> Currently all keywords are available and editable to all people with<br> edit bugs access. This situation is clearly suboptimal.<br> <br> Although relying on good behaviour for people to not do what they<br> shouldn't works reasonably well on the mozilla.org, it is better to<br> enforce that behaviour - it can be breached through malice, accident<br> or ignorance.<br> <br> And in the situation where it is desirable for the presence or absence<br> of a keyword not to be revealed, organisations either need to be<br> content with the divulgence, or not use keywords at all.<br> <br> In the situation where they choose to divulge, introducing the ability<br> to restrict who can see the keyword would also reduce keyword<br> overload.<br> <br> Personal Keywords<br> <br> Keywords join together a set of bugs which would otherwise be<br> unrelated in the bug system.<br> <br> We allow users to store their own queries. However we don't allow<br> them to store their own keywords on a bug. This reduces the<br> usefulness of personal queries, since you cannot join a set of<br> unrelated bugs together in a way that you wish. Lists of bug numbers<br> can work, by they can only be used for small lists, and it is<br> impossible to share a list between multiple queries.<br> <br> Personal keywords are necessary to replace personal tracking bugs, as<br> they would not pollute the keyword space. Indeed, on many<br> installations this could remove some keywords out of the global<br> keyword space.<br> <br> In a similar vein and with similar effects, group keywords could be<br> introduced that are only available to members of a specific group.<br> <br> Keyword Restrictions<br> <br> Keywords are not islands unto themselves. Along with their potential<br> to be involved in the inter-field relationships mentioned earlier,<br> keywords can also be related to other keywords.<br> <br> Essentially, there are two possibilities:<br> * a set of keywords are mutually exclusive<br> * the presence of a keyword implies another keyword must be present<br> <br> Introduction of the ability to specify these restrictions would have<br> benefits.<br> <br> If mutually exclusive keywords were present on a bug, their removal<br> would fix up the database, as well as reducing the number of keywords<br> on that bug.<br> <br> In the situation where a keyword implies another keyword, there are<br> two possiblities as to how to handle the situation.<br> <br> The first is automatically add the keyword. This would fix up the<br> database, but it would increase the number of keywords on a bug.<br> <br> The second is to automatically remove the keyword, and alter queries<br> so they pick up the first keyword as well as the removed keyword.<br> This would fix up the database and reduce the number of keywords on a<br> bug, but it might confuse users who don't see the keyword.<br> Alternatively, the implied keywords could be listed separately.<br> <br> Notifications<br> <br> Every time a bug gets changed notifications get sent out to people<br> letting them know about what changes have been made. This is a<br> significant feature, and all sorts of questions can be raised, but<br> they mainly boil down to when they should be sent and what they should<br> look like.<br> <br> Changes You're Interested In<br> <br> As of version 2.12 users can specify what sort of changes they are<br> interested in receiving notifications for. However, this is still<br> limited. As yet there is no facility to specify which keywords you<br> care about, and whether you care about changes to fields such as the<br> QA contact changes.<br> Furthermore, often an unnecessary comment will go along with a change,<br> either because it is required, or the commenter is ignorant of how the<br> new system works. While explaining why you did something is useful,<br> merely commenting on what you did is not because that information is<br> already accessible view "Bug Activity".<br> <br> Because of this unnecessary comment, a lot of changes that would<br> otherwise not generate notifications for certain people do so, because<br> few people are willing to turn off comments. One way to deal with<br> this problem is to allow people to specify that their comments are<br> purely explanatory, and that anyone who is not interested in the<br> change will not be interested in the comment.<br> <br> Furthermore, one possible rationale for unnecessary comments is that<br> the bug activity does not display on the normal page and hence it is<br> difficult to cross reference comments and actions. Hence, it would be<br> beneficial to be able to do this.<br> <br> Bugs You're Watching<br> <br> Currently to receive a notification about a bug you need to have your<br> name on it. This is suboptimal because you need to know about a bug<br> before you can receive notifications on it. Often you are interested<br> in any bug with a field set to a specific value. For example, you<br> might be interested in all bugs with a specific product, component or<br> keyword.<br> <br> If someone could automatically receive notifications about these bugs,<br> it would make everyone's lives easier. Currently the default assignee<br> and QA contact for a component will automatically receive<br> notifications for<br> <br> Question: This moves half way to a BCC.<br> <br> Bulk Changes<br> <br> A very useful feature of Bugzilla is the ability to perform an action<br> on multiple bugs at once. However, this means that similar<br> notifications are currently generated for each bug modified.<br> <br> This can result in a torrent of notifications that can annoy.<br> <br> Furthermore, since the bugs are all changed close to each other in<br> time, it is easy for someone to mass delete all the notifications<br> generated by a bulk change and miss an unrelated notification in the<br> middle.<br> <br> These factors can lead to a tendency for people to delay bulk changes,<br> or avoid them entirely. This is suboptimal.<br> <br> It would be better if a bulk change generated only one notification<br> mail. This would vastly reduce the annoyance factor, and prevent<br> accidental deletion of notifications.<br> <br> One problem with this change is that some people separate out<br> notifications using filtering. This means that they would no longer<br> be match parts of a bulk change under different filtering rules.<br> <br> One possibility to resolve this is to allow people to specify groups<br> of bugs. All bugs within a group would go into the same<br> notification. The filters could then distinguish the different bug<br> groups.<br> <br> In any case, it is likely there would need to be a transition period<br> to allow people to alter their filters.<br> <br> Nominations<br> <br> ?<br> <br> Linking Bugzilla Installations<br> <br> The first example of linking Bugzilla installations together has is<br> the introduction of bug moving in version 2.12. However, it would be<br> useful to be able to link installations in more ways.<br> * Dependencies and other relationships between bugs in other<br> installations. This is difficult because dependencies are<br> synchronised on both bugs, so the installation that changes<br> dependencies would need to communicate the new state to the other<br> installation. It would also mean that relationships and<br> notifications that refer to other bugs would need to communicate<br> with the other installation.<br> * References to bugs in other installations. Currently if you type<br> "bug XXX" or "bug #XXX" where XXX is a number, you get an<br> automatic hyperlink to that bug. It would be useful if you could<br> say "YYY bug #XXX" where YYY is the name of another installation.<br> <br> Retirement<br> <br> ?<br> <br> Whiny Reports<br> <br> ?<br> <br> Group Redesign<br> <br> ?<br> <br> Hard Wrapping Comments<br> <br> Currently Bugzilla "hard wraps" its comments to a specific line size,<br> similar to E-Mail. This has various problems:<br> * The way it currently works, wrapping is done in the browser at<br> submission time using a non-standard HTML extension not supported<br> by some (uncommon) browsers. These browsers generate comments<br> that scroll off the right side of the screen.<br> * Because comments are of fixed width, when you expand your browser<br> window, the comments do not expand to fit available space.<br> <br> It would be much better to move to a world of soft wrapping, where the<br> browser wraps the text at display time, similar to a world processor.<br> And as in a word processor, soft wrapping does not preclude the<br> insertion of newlines.<br> <br> Hard wrapping is too entrenched into text E-Mail to fix, but we can<br> fix Bugzilla without causing any problems. The old content will still<br> be wrapped too early, but at least new content will work.<br> </P > </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="tinderbox.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="variants.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Tinderbox/Tinderbox2</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Bugzilla Variants and Competitors</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >