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

[Shivani Bhardwaj]

On Wednesday 22 August 2018 02:43 AM, Vikas Tara wrote:
> On 21/08/18 17:04, Dhanesh Sabane wrote:
>> 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
Actually, all these features are also provided by Bugzilla so I really 
won't consider these the advantages over Bugzilla to make the move.

But indeed, GitLab is more user friendly, provides simple filters and a 
nice interface.
>> 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.
If we still keep Bugzilla then the idea of managing one less service 
won't be served justice.
>> 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,
>>
> My only reservation was about the effort required and if that should 
> be done now or not. As the migration work has been done, I don't see a 
> strong reason to keep Bugzilla.
Please note that our GitLab was restructured and made such that keeping 
issues would not be a problem there. Bugs were not migrated from 
Bugzilla. It is yet to be done. There are a few tools out there 
[untested] which might help with the bulk import. However, GitLab does 
not provide any such plugin or feature[1].

Conclusion: I think, if we're moving the issues to GitLab, all the 
issues should be moved there and shut Bugzilla down completely.

[1] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/23530
> _______________________________________________ Hamara-devel mailing 
> list Hamara-devel at lists.hamaralinux.org 
> http://lists.hamaralinux.org/listinfo/hamara-devel