GNU bug report logs - #26380
Adding 'summary' and 'outlook' fields from upstream debbugs?

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net
To: submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Adding 'summary' and 'outlook' fields from upstream debbugs?
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2017 21:38:01 -0400

Package: debbugs.gnu.org
Severity: wishlist

I was looking at https://www.debian.org/Bugs/server-control and I found
two commands that debbugs.gnu.org lacks, that seem like they would be
very useful to have:

    summary bugnumber [message number | summary text]

        Selects a message to use as a summary of a bug. The first
        non-pseudoheader/non-control paragraph of that message is parsed
        and set as the summary of the bug which is displayed on the top
        of the bug report page. This is useful in cases where the
        original report doesn't correctly describe the problem or the
        bug has many messages which make it difficult to identify the
        actual problem.
        [...]

    outlook bugnumber [message number | outlook text]

        Selects a message to use as the outlook for fixing a bug (or the
        current status of fixing a bug). The first
        non-pseudoheader/non-control paragraph of that message is parsed
        and set as the outlook of the bug which is displayed on the top
        of the bug report page. This is useful to coordinate with others
        who are working on fixing this bug (for example, in an bug
        squashing party).
        [...]

Is the debbugs.gnu.org code still close enough to upstream that it would
be practical to get these?  (where is the debbugs.gnu.org code anyway?)

Message #8 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
To: npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net
Cc: 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Adding 'summary' and 'outlook' fields from upstream
 debbugs?
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2017 20:52:23 -0400

npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net wrote:

> I was looking at https://www.debian.org/Bugs/server-control and I found
> two commands that debbugs.gnu.org lacks, that seem like they would be
> very useful to have:
>
>     summary bugnumber [message number | summary text]
[...]
>     outlook bugnumber [message number | outlook text]
[...]
> Is the debbugs.gnu.org code still close enough to upstream that it would
> be practical to get these?

The short answer is that debbugs.gnu.org is very unlikely to get any
features from upstream debbugs, unless they are simple and
self-contained patches (I'm guessing these are not, it sounds like they
would touch a bunch of areas of the code).

The longer answer is that d.g.o started 10 years ago based on a
development branch of debbugs. Since then our version has been edited
quite a bit. Edits are done in-place on the live system, with no true
version control. So changes do not go to upstream, or vice versa.

Obviously this is bad. The way to fix it would be:

1) identify exactly which version of debbugs we started from (I don't
even know)
2) convert local changes to proper VCS commits
3) merge in upstream commits since
4) set up a test system using the new version
5) when satisfied, make test system the live version

I know this is what needs to be done, but I don't have any enthusiasm
for doing it, I'm sorry.

> (where is the debbugs.gnu.org code anyway?)

It only exists as the live code on debbugs.gnu.org (and as system backups).
I can provide a dump of it if someone wants it.


Sorry about this situation. I didn't create it, but I haven't made it
any better in this regard. The system works and is stable, but is
unlikely to get new features, unless someone gets inspired.

Message #11 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net
Subject: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Fri, 19 May 2017 13:11:03 +0200

Hi Glenn,

Reviving an old thread…

Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org> skribis:

> The short answer is that debbugs.gnu.org is very unlikely to get any
> features from upstream debbugs, unless they are simple and
> self-contained patches (I'm guessing these are not, it sounds like they
> would touch a bunch of areas of the code).
>
> The longer answer is that d.g.o started 10 years ago based on a
> development branch of debbugs. Since then our version has been edited
> quite a bit. Edits are done in-place on the live system, with no true
> version control. So changes do not go to upstream, or vice versa.
>
> Obviously this is bad. The way to fix it would be:
>
> 1) identify exactly which version of debbugs we started from (I don't
> even know)
> 2) convert local changes to proper VCS commits
> 3) merge in upstream commits since
> 4) set up a test system using the new version
> 5) when satisfied, make test system the live version
>
> I know this is what needs to be done, but I don't have any enthusiasm
> for doing it, I'm sorry.
>
>> (where is the debbugs.gnu.org code anyway?)
>
> It only exists as the live code on debbugs.gnu.org (and as system backups).
> I can provide a dump of it if someone wants it.

I would be interested in having a dump of it.  Could you upload it
somewhere?

Then I can take the time to have it in a Git repo on Savannah (even if
it means starting without any VCS history), and from there it would be
great if you could use it to commit changes that you make.

Not as good as creating a proper branch of Debbugs, but still an
improvement IMO.

TIA!

Ludo’.

Message #14 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
To: ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)
Cc: 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Sat, 20 May 2017 19:13:01 -0400

Ludovic Courtès wrote:

> I would be interested in having a dump of it.  Could you upload it
> somewhere?

http://debbugs.gnu.org/gnu.tar.xz

> Then I can take the time to have it in a Git repo on Savannah (even if
> it means starting without any VCS history), and from there it would be
> great if you could use it to commit changes that you make.

I'm not sure this will be useful without me first doing a bunch of
clean-up.

> Not as good as creating a proper branch of Debbugs, but still an
> improvement IMO.

Well, let's see. :)

Message #17 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Mon, 22 May 2017 10:45:16 +0200

Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>
>> I would be interested in having a dump of it.  Could you upload it
>> somewhere?
>
> http://debbugs.gnu.org/gnu.tar.xz

Thanks!

>> Then I can take the time to have it in a Git repo on Savannah (even if
>> it means starting without any VCS history), and from there it would be
>> great if you could use it to commit changes that you make.
>
> I'm not sure this will be useful without me first doing a bunch of
> clean-up.

Sure, but maybe that’s a useful first step?  I find it easier to have
simple actionable steps.

At any rate, you’ll choose which snapshot you want to include there as
the initial commit.

I’ve just filed a registration request at Savannah for a “debbugs-gnu”
project.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Message #20 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net>
To: ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2017 18:57:57 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> I’ve just filed a registration request at Savannah for a “debbugs-gnu”
> project.

Did this go through?  I've meanwhile identified [1: f0a45d7] as the
version debbugs.gnu.org started from, and reconstructed some plausible
VCS commits based on the backup files from the tar file (the order is
according to their timestamps, semi-automated with the attached
replay-debbugs.el).  You can find the result at
https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs.git, the gnu-reconstruction branch
has all the debbugs.gnu.org changes.

[replay-debbugs.el (text/plain, attachment)]

[Message part 3 (text/plain, inline)]

[1: f0a45d7]: 2009-07-27 16:14:26 -0700
   * use found instead of version in set_found inside of reassign
   https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs/commit/f0a45d7d3146ad8406b5bb1b11934852610e5f2f.patch

Message #23 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)
To: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2017 10:42:43 +0200

Hi Noam,

Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net> skribis:

> ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>
>> I’ve just filed a registration request at Savannah for a “debbugs-gnu”
>> project.
>
> Did this go through?

Not yet: <https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?14517>.

> I've meanwhile identified [1: f0a45d7] as the version debbugs.gnu.org
> started from, and reconstructed some plausible VCS commits based on
> the backup files from the tar file (the order is according to their
> timestamps, semi-automated with the attached replay-debbugs.el).  You
> can find the result at https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs.git, the
> gnu-reconstruction branch has all the debbugs.gnu.org changes.

Excellent!  I think we can start using this repo now.

Glenn, do you think you can switch the local copy on debbugs.gnu.org to
a checkout of this repo?

Thank you,
Ludo’.

Message #26 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
To: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>, 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2017 07:52:41 -0400

Noam Postavsky wrote:

> I've meanwhile identified [1: f0a45d7] as the version debbugs.gnu.org
> started from, and reconstructed some plausible VCS commits based on
> the backup files from the tar file (the order is according to their
> timestamps, semi-automated with the attached replay-debbugs.el). You
> can find the result at https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs.git, the
> gnu-reconstruction branch has all the debbugs.gnu.org changes.

Thank you very much for this excellent work. I will take a look, but it
won't be for some weeks.

Message #29 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: ludo <at> chbouib.org (Ludovic Courtès)
To: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2017 17:16:08 +0200

Hello,

ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:

> Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net> skribis:
>
>> ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>>
>>> I’ve just filed a registration request at Savannah for a “debbugs-gnu”
>>> project.
>>
>> Did this go through?
>
> Not yet: <https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?14517>.

The Savannah folks refuse to host a copy of Debbugs, so we could just as
well declare your copy as the “official” one, or create a “debbugs-gnu”
project on one of these hosting sites.

Ludo’.

Message #32 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net>
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>, 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 10:40:11 -0400

On 9 October 2017 at 07:52, Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org> wrote:
> Noam Postavsky wrote:
>
>> I've meanwhile identified [1: f0a45d7] as the version debbugs.gnu.org
>> started from, and reconstructed some plausible VCS commits based on
>> the backup files from the tar file (the order is according to their
>> timestamps, semi-automated with the attached replay-debbugs.el). You
>> can find the result at https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs.git, the
>> gnu-reconstruction branch has all the debbugs.gnu.org changes.
>
> Thank you very much for this excellent work. I will take a look, but it
> won't be for some weeks.

I've started working on merging the master branch. Using imerge[1], I
found the file removals I put in the beginning were interfering, so
I've gotten rid of those commits, see the reconstruction-sans-delete
branch. Apart from dropping the file deletion commits, the "Give https
compatible links" change now applies to $gHTMLTail in scripts/text[2]
rather than several html/*.html files[3]. Otherwise the two branches
are the same.

[1]: https://github.com/mhagger/git-imerge
[2]: https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs/commit/1310fb62499f56a240bcfe04b55f74837455dc77.patch
[3]: https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs/commit/fdc370da78a9a09612cf52aa90f9890f5fae64a3.patch

Message #35 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus <at> gmx.de>
To: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>,
 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 20:04:39 +0200

Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net> writes:

Hi Noam,

> I've started working on merging the master branch. Using imerge[1], I
> found the file removals I put in the beginning were interfering, so
> I've gotten rid of those commits, see the reconstruction-sans-delete
> branch. Apart from dropping the file deletion commits, the "Give https
> compatible links" change now applies to $gHTMLTail in scripts/text[2]
> rather than several html/*.html files[3]. Otherwise the two branches
> are the same.

Are there plans to install changes from your repo back to
debbugs.gnu.org? There are some bugs (*) I could work on; using your repo
would be much safer than changing directly on debbugs.gnu.org, as I did
in the past.

Furthermore, do we intend to offer Debian to take over changes we have
applied? I've tried that in the past, but the Debian people didn't
react. Years ago, but we could retry.

(*): For example,

23624 minor,debbugs.gnu.or [Glenn Morris	   ] Closing a blocker does not update bugreport.cgi for bug it blocks
 5439 wishlist,debbugs.gnu [Glenn Morris	   ] Per-bug subscription




Best regards, Michael.

Message #38 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> gmail.com>
To: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus <at> gmx.de>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>,
 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Sat, 12 May 2018 08:03:09 -0400

Michael Albinus <michael.albinus <at> gmx.de> writes:

> Are there plans to install changes from your repo back to
> debbugs.gnu.org?

Yeah, that would be step 5:
https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=26380#8

Still working through step 3 for now though...

> There are some bugs (*) I could work on; using your repo
> would be much safer than changing directly on debbugs.gnu.org, as I did
> in the past.

Ah, I tagged Glenn as the author of all the reconstructed commits, does
that mean some of them should be yours?

> Furthermore, do we intend to offer Debian to take over changes we have
> applied? I've tried that in the past, but the Debian people didn't
> react. Years ago, but we could retry.

Well, first we'd have to see if our changes would make sense.  I've seen
a couple of cases so far during the merge where it looks like the same
bug was fixed on the Debian side.

Message #41 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus <at> gmx.de>
To: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> gmail.com>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>,
 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> users.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Sat, 12 May 2018 14:41:24 +0200

Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> gmail.com> writes:

Hi Noam,

>> There are some bugs (*) I could work on; using your repo
>> would be much safer than changing directly on debbugs.gnu.org, as I did
>> in the past.
>
> Ah, I tagged Glenn as the author of all the reconstructed commits, does
> that mean some of them should be yours?

Yes, some very few changes are from me. Some other changes are from
Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>, IIRC. But since the vast majority
of the changes are from Glenn, I have no problems all (reconstructed)
commits are dedicated to him.

The major change I have contributed is the extension of the SOAP
interface by function search_est, see your commit 4bec5ac. I've offered
the Debian guys to take over; no reaction.

>> Furthermore, do we intend to offer Debian to take over changes we have
>> applied? I've tried that in the past, but the Debian people didn't
>> react. Years ago, but we could retry.
>
> Well, first we'd have to see if our changes would make sense.  I've seen
> a couple of cases so far during the merge where it looks like the same
> bug was fixed on the Debian side.

Yes.

And there was also something else outside the debbugs package, we have
reported to Debian (and which is said fixed now). See
<https://bugs.debian.org/734470>, don't know whether the Debian patch
has arrived debbugs.gnu.org.

Message #44 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> gmail.com>
To: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus <at> gmx.de>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>,
 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Sun, 27 May 2018 22:24:24 -0400

Michael Albinus <michael.albinus <at> gmx.de> writes:

> Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Ah, I tagged Glenn as the author of all the reconstructed commits, does
>> that mean some of them should be yours?
>
> Yes, some very few changes are from me. Some other changes are from
> Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>, IIRC. But since the vast majority
> of the changes are from Glenn, I have no problems all (reconstructed)
> commits are dedicated to him.
>
> The major change I have contributed is the extension of the SOAP
> interface by function search_est, see your commit 4bec5ac.

Well, since I decided to rebase anyway, I marked the commit which had a
comment in it containing "cyd" as authored by Chong Yidong, and the
search_est commit as authored by you.

I've rebased onto the last commit in master which is reachable from the
'debian' branch.  I think this represents the 2.6.0 stable release.

After the initial rebase, I made some further touch ups (summary of
cross-branch changes are listed in the wiki page)

https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs/wikis/rebase-to-upstream-fixups-todo-list
https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs/compare/debian...rebase-to-upstream-v1
https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs/compare/debian...rebase-to-upstream-v2
https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs/compare/debian...rebase-to-upstream-v3

One thing that puzzled me a bit.  In scripts/recieve I had to add an
apparently missing assignment to let the tests pass; it seems strange
that that was missing before though.  How did it work up until now?
Wouldn't $dest always be in danger of not getting assigned?  Or is
X-Debbugs-Envelope-To guaranteed to be present (but perhaps the test env
fails to provide it)?

    #######################################################
    ## Emacs BTS hack: use mail headers to reset $_.

    my $dest; ## <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< add " = $_" here.
    my @headerlines;
    while(<STDIN>) {
        push @headerlines, $_;
        if (m/X-Debbugs-Envelope-To:\s+(.+)/) {
            $dest = $1;
            last;
        }
        last if (m/^$/);
    }
    $_ = $dest;

Message #47 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
To: Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
 Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>,
 Michael Albinus <michael.albinus <at> gmx.de>
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2018 13:36:02 -0400

I'm sorry for the lack of response.

The obvious truth is that I'm not interested in doing work on
debbugs.gnu.org any more, and should hand it over to someone else.

There are two things that I felt I should do before that:

1) Update from Debian 8 to 9. I've been through a similar process
several times before, and it's mostly straightforward. This time,
progress is waiting on the FSF sysadmins providing a new VM, but to be
fair to them I haven't pursued the issue at all.

2) Sort out this issue of the actual debbugs installation being modified
in-place with no proper VCS.

I think it is past time to accept the fact that I'm not going to get
these things done. It's better to hand over maintenance to someone else,
who might do better (but things should be fine if they just continue as
they are).

I will try to work up a job advert and post it on help-debbugs.

Message #50 received at 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 26380 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Michael Albinus <michael.albinus <at> gmx.de>,
 Noam Postavsky <npostavs <at> gmail.com>
Subject: Re: bug#26380: Getting a copy of the GNU Debbugs
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2018 10:01:41 +0200

Hello Glenn and all,

Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org> skribis:

> I'm sorry for the lack of response.
>
> The obvious truth is that I'm not interested in doing work on
> debbugs.gnu.org any more, and should hand it over to someone else.

Thanks for letting us know.  There are several projects relying on
Debbugs so I hope we can manage a smooth transition.  The work that Noam
put into recontructing the VCS history will certainly help.

Anyway, thanks for all the energy you invested in Debbugs over the years!
It’s been very helpful and appreciated.

Ludo’.

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