1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
<HTML
><HEAD
><TITLE
>What is 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="UP"
TITLE="Using Bugzilla"
HREF="using.html"><LINK
REL="PREVIOUS"
TITLE="Using Bugzilla"
HREF="using.html"><LINK
REL="NEXT"
TITLE="Why Should We Use Bugzilla?"
HREF="why.html"></HEAD
><BODY
CLASS="SECTION"
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="using.html"
>Prev</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="80%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="bottom"
>Chapter 2. Using Bugzilla</TD
><TD
WIDTH="10%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="bottom"
><A
HREF="why.html"
>Next</A
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
><HR
ALIGN="LEFT"
WIDTH="100%"></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECTION"
><H1
CLASS="SECTION"
><A
NAME="WHATIS"
>2.1. What is Bugzilla?</A
></H1
><P
> Bugzilla is one example of a class of programs called "Defect
Tracking Systems", or, more commonly, "Bug-Tracking Systems". Defect
Tracking Systems allow individual or groups of developers to keep
track of outstanding bugs in their product effectively. Bugzilla was
originally written by Terry Weissman in a programming language called
"TCL", to replace a crappy bug-tracking database used internally for
Netscape Communications. Terry later ported Bugzilla to Perl from
TCL, and in Perl it remains to this day. Most commercial
defect-tracking software vendors at the time charged enormous
licensing fees, and Bugzilla quickly became a favorite of the
open-source crowd (with its genesis in the open-source browser
project, Mozilla). It is now the de-facto standard defect-tracking
system against which all others are measured.
</P
><P
> Bugzilla has matured immensely, and now boasts many advanced features. These include:
<P
></P
><UL
><LI
><P
> integrated, product-based granular security schema
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> inter-bug dependencies and dependency graphing
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> advanced reporting capabilities
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> a robust, stable RDBMS back-end
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> extensive configurability
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> a very well-understood and well-thought-out natural bug resolution protocol
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> email, XML, console, and HTTP APIs
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> available integration with automated software configuration management systems, including
Perforce and CVS
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> too many more features to list
</P
></LI
></UL
>
</P
><P
> Despite its current robustness and popularity, however, Bugzilla
faces some near-term challenges, such as reliance on a single database, a lack of
abstraction of the user interface and program logic, verbose email bug
notifications, a powerful but daunting query interface, little reporting configurability,
problems with extremely large queries, some unsupportable bug resolution options,
no internationalization, and dependence on some nonstandard libraries.
</P
><P
> Some recent headway has been made on the query front, however. If you are using the latest
version of Bugzilla, you should see a "simple search" form on the default front page of
your Bugzilla install. Type in two or three search terms and you should pull up some
relevant information. This is also available as "queryhelp.cgi".
</P
><P
> Despite these small problems, Bugzilla is very hard to beat. It is under <EM
>very</EM
>
active development to address the current issues, and a long-awaited overhaul in the form
of Bugzilla 3.0 is expected sometime later this year.
</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="using.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="why.html"
>Next</A
></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
>Using Bugzilla</TD
><TD
WIDTH="34%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="using.html"
>Up</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
>Why Should We Use Bugzilla?</TD
></TR
></TABLE
></DIV
></BODY
></HTML
>