Bug tracking

Introduction

trac (2007 - present time)

Since 9 Dec 2007 we use Trac. Trac is an open source, web-based project management and bug-tracking tool, inspired by CVSTrac. It is developed and maintained by Edgewall Software.

http://trac.osgeo.org/grass

Historical note: The GForge and RT can be used to examine the previously resolved issues, and those that were still in progress as the new system was released. It would be good to move all the tickets from the former trackers to the new one, but nodody has volunteered yet. If you are the one, please contact the admin to arrange it.

GForge

Used: Jan 2007 - Dec 2008

The former tracker was GForge (a feature-rich system for collaborating on a software project). Under the GForge setup by Intevation company, there is a set of trackers for the GRASS project.

RT

Used: Dec 2000 - Dec 2006

There is also the even older GRASS Request Tracker - RT.

Participate

The trackers are available for public view, but in order to be able to post (including creating a new report), and to use all the features of the trackers, you need to setup an account at GForge and join the GRASS project at GForge.

How it works

All trackers' new submissions are automatically forwarded to the GRASS development mailing list. The followup traffic is stored in the tracker, and forwarded only to parties discussing the ticket. However, any project member can "monitor" a ticket, or a whole tracker, in order to receive all the related traffic (see GForge manuals).

Maintainers:

general admin and cleaner

Maciej Sieczka

backup admin

Bernhard Reiter

code patches

Jachym Cepicky

website patches

Scott Mitchell

doc patches

Martin Landa

There are 3 project member roles: admin, developer and user.

admin

Manages requests to join the project and maintains the GRASS project's setup at GForge.

developer

Can do most of the things that admin can. Only that he doesn't have his duties and he can't remove the whole GRASS project. But he still can add/modify/delete trackers as well as delete tickets for good. It was neccessary to provide that much power to developers so that they could move tickets between the trackers. Developers - please use your power wisely and let the admin know before doing something more intrusive you are not sure about :).

user

Can open new tickets in the trackers, reply to other tickets and monitor, participate in surveys (admin and developer can too, of course).

Buggy GForge bugtracker?

When you spot something wrong or a possible enhacement in the setup of GRASS trackers at GForge, please drop admin a line. If it's a bug or a missing feature in the GForge software itself, please report it to wald.intevation.org GForge site maintainers, preferably using their bugtracker. If unsure whether the issue is in the GRASS trackers setup, or in the GForge itself, contact admin first, or ask on GRASS dev ML.

Current top issues with GForge from the point of view of GRASS team, which hamper info flow and productivity:

• can't CC an email from GForge
• whole discussion included in the email notification = noise fixed by Sascha Wilde on 18.07.2007
• mail reply doesn't work
• email notifications sent from GForge to GRASS dev ML should also have it's address to reply to fixed by Sascha Wilde on 30.07.2007

GForge: beyond the trackers

GForge provides many functionalities. Currently we use only the trackers, as all the other functionalities are implemented in the current GRASS infrastructure (besides surveys; maybe there will be some use for them - let's keep them in mind  :) ). However, it is worth rembering that GForge can provide things like discussion forums, mailing lists, ftp space, SVN server and some more.

NOTE, 2007.04.07: according to discussion on GRASS dev ML, migration to SVN is planned soon.

See also

• GRASS GIS Migration from CVS to SVN
• GRASS GIS 7 SVN hosting
• OSGeo: Project Infrastructure Migration 2007
• GForge manuals
• bugtracking page on the GRASS website