[Hamara-devel] Proposal: Move our bug tracker to GitLab Issues

[Dhanesh Sabane]

Hello everyone!

Over the developers' meetings that happened in past weeks, we evaluated 
GitLab Issues as a potential replacement for our current bug tracker - 
Bugzilla. We started working towards Svastik release by restructuring 
the GitLab repositories and also creating templates for issues/bugs to 
be filed in GitLab. I would like to put forth a proposal for moving our 
bug tracker for Hamara Svastik and all the upcoming releases to GitLab 
issues. Inviting everyone to voice their opinions.

# Motivation

The primary motivation for moving to GitLab issues, from the Hamara 
Developers' point of view, was to decrease the maintenance overhead of 
Bugzilla. We'll have one less service to worry about. Also, we have been 
facing the login issue on Bugzilla for quite some time now.

Considering the user perspective, it eliminates the need to maintain two 
different accounts for tracking bugs/issues and contributing to the project.

# Advantages of using GitLab issues

- Better management of issues with tags and templates for filing bugs
- Less work for developers and users in maintaining services and 
accounts, respectively
- Will fare well when we decide to implement LDAP for the Hamara Project
- Extremely helpful for metrics [1]
	* How many issues were raised against a project?
	* How many were resolved?
	* Which contributors worked on resolving those issues?
	* and many more concerning other factors

I'm pretty sure there might be a couple more advantages but I hope the 
ones mentioned above make a strong case.

# Situations where Bugzilla can still be used

If we decide to move to GitLab issues, we can still make use of Bugzilla 
to manage all the bugs/issues related to packaging software for Hamara. 
However, if I'd still recommend GitLab for these bugs/issues.

Finally, I request everyone to share their thoughts on the proposal so 
that we can come to a final consensus that is in the best interests of 
the community.

Note that most of the migration work was completed over the past weeks 
and all we need to do now is to start filing bugs/issues on GitLab and 
get started with Svastik development.

[1] https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/contribution_analytics/

Regards,

-- 
Dhanesh B. Sabane [dhanesh95]
https://dhanesh95.gitlab.io
PGP ID: 0xB69A98C9C1642329
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