Re: Using GNATS to track GCC patches

[Bryce McKinlay <bryce at waitaki dot otago dot ac dot nz>]

Joseph S. Myers wrote:

>>at all with some browsers and I wonder what advantages does it give over
>>bugzilla. Is it just political issue?
>>

While the GNATS system is somewhat better than nothing, I do not think 
that it fufills the needs of a large project like GCC well at all. I 
would very much like to see a better system installed, ie Bugzilla.

>How does bugzilla compare to the wishlist I sent in
><URL:http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-bugs/2001-10/msg00649.html>?  Advocates of
>other bug tracking systems can answer for the ones they prefer.  No-one on
>gnats-devel answered as to how GNATS 4 compares.
>

Bugzilla fufills most of these wishes, although I'm actually not sure to 
the extend of which bugs can be administered through the email 
interface. Its email interface is much more powerful that GNATS though, 
eg you have lots of control over what bugs get emailed to you when the 
status changes etc. GNATS gives you no options here, which I have always 
hated. The bugzilla interface is much faster to navigate and more 
refined than the clunky GNATSweb, so I would argue there is less need 
for an email admin interface anyway.

I may be able to devote some time to investigating bugzilla, say setting 
up a sample installation and importing the existing database. I think it 
could provide a huge benefit to GCC.

Bugzilla is, I think, licensed under the MPL, which is GPL-incompatible 
for linking purposes. However, 1) the Apache license is also 
GPL-incompatible and this hasn't stopped the FSF from running Apache, 
and 2) The mozilla people are relicensing much of their code under an 
MPL/GPL/LGPL "triple license" - though afaik this hasn't been done for 
bugzilla yet at this stage.

regards

Bryce.