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Bugzilla 2.18 Goes Gold 154

Posted by michael from the until-they-invent-self-debugging-code dept.
bugger writes "After almost three years of development, the Bugzilla project has released long-waited Bugzilla 2.18. It contains many new features, a huge number of bug fixes, some security updates, and more. It is also the first Bugzilla version to run unmodified on Windows. In parallel, security release 2.16.8 and a new development snapshot 2.19.2 have been announced."
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Bugzilla 2.18 Goes Gold More

Bugzilla 2.18 Goes Gold

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  • ...if Bugzilla had a bug.

  • Talk about slow! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mirk ( 184717 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMmiketaylor.org.uk> on Sunday January 16, 2005 @07:17PM (#11381329) Homepage
    It took them three years to get from 2.17 to 2.18? At a rate of 0.0333 releases per year, it must have taken them sixty-five years just to get to 2.17. That means they've been developing BugZilla since just after the start of World War II, which means they really ought to have shaken all the bugs out by now. Better drop the word "bug" from the name, then.

    • In The Beginning ... (Score:4, Funny)

      by handy_vandal ( 606174 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:02PM (#11381587) Homepage Journal
      It took them three years to get from 2.17 to 2.18? At a rate of 0.0333 releases per year, it must have taken them sixty-five years just to get to 2.17. That means they've been developing BugZilla since just after the start of World War II ...

      If you accept that the rate of bug discovery is constant.

      This is a hotly debated issue. For example, some Creationists assert that the rate of bug discovery has accelerated with time, and that BugZilla development began five to six thousand years ago.

    • Don't worry, the pace is about to pick up. I heard that 2.20 will be out in about two weeks. Seriously

    • That means they've been developing BugZilla since just after the start of World War II,

      Of course! The real sensation in Bugzilla is that it is the Original Bug Tracking System, as old as the oldest electronic computers and certainly as old as the oldest bugs. The original version was written in COBOL and was used to track moth migrations. It was one of the decisive technological leaps that decided the outcome of the war. Since the Germans didn't have moth tracking system, their computer scientists never

    • No, it took them 2.5 years to get from 2.16 to 2.18. Odd minor numbers are development releases. Besides, the slow cycle is being changed to a fast cycle; 2.20 this summer. RTFA.

  • bugzilla.mozilla.org is up to date (Score:4, Informative)

    by digitalgimpus ( 468277 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @07:18PM (#11381342) Homepage
    For those who participate with mozilla's bugzilla installation for reporting bugs, that has been the test site for some time.

    So you have had most of those features for quite some time.
    • Err, I thought the test site had been landfill.bugzilla.org [bugzilla.org]?

      So as to avoid, you know, totally screwing with the Mozilla (+ bugzilla, etc.) bug database if stuff breaks? Granted, Mozilla does use really up-to-date installations of bugzilla...

      In fact, b.m.o seems to be on 2.19+ now (according to the banner up top)...

      [NB I'm just an interested bystander]

  • Hmm (Score:1, Interesting)

    by IGTeRR0r ( 805236 )
    January 15 lists two entries [bugzilla.org] ... talk about last minute programming!
    Gamercentric.com - GAMING HEAVEN [gamercentric.com]

  • Bugzilla with bug fixes? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @07:24PM (#11381376) Homepage Journal
    "After almost three years of development, the Bugzilla project has released long-waited Bugzilla 2.18. It contains many new features, a huge number of bug fixes, some security updates, and more."

    A huge number of bug fixes? You mean it contains built-in, preloaded bug fixes for future bug reports? I had no idea it was even possible but it surely sounds like a useful feature. I will also probably use those security updates, for I have a lot of open tickets asking for them. This is a very good news.

  • RPMs (Score:3, Funny)

    by LittleLebowskiUrbanA ( 619114 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @07:30PM (#11381410) Homepage Journal
    Should we wait on Redhat or start looking?
    • Why this isn't modded funny me don't understand.... You don't need not RPM for installing Bugzilla. It is just a bunch of scripts ;-)
    • You should install from CVS.
      It's easiest to maintain and update..
      http://www.bugzilla.org/download/#cvs

  • Uh... What is Bugzilla? (Score:4, Informative)

    by sanityspeech ( 823537 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @07:36PM (#11381448) Journal
    Taken from the about page [bugzilla.org]:

    Bugzilla is a "Defect Tracking System" or "Bug-Tracking System". Defect Tracking Systems allow individual or groups of developers to keep track of outstanding bugs in their product effectively. Most commercial defect-tracking software vendors charge enormous licensing fees. Despite being "free", Bugzilla has many features its expensive counterparts lack. Consequently, Bugzilla has quickly become a favorite of hundreds of organizations across the globe.
    • >Bugzilla is a "Defect Tracking System"
      >or "Bug-Tracking System". Defect Tracking
      >Systems allow individual or groups of
      >developers to keep track of outstanding
      >bugs in their product effectively.

      This might be considered a little OT but one thing that confuses me about how Mozilla itself implements this for their own products (Firefox etc.) is that it's used to report and discuss things that I wouldn't think are "bugs" such as feature requests, functions that don't work the way end users think
      • This might be considered a little OT but one thing that confuses me about how Mozilla itself implements this for their own products (Firefox etc.) is that it's used to report and discuss things that I wouldn't think are "bugs" such as feature requests, functions that don't work the way end users think they should, and complaints about "antifeatures". Some of them can be damn annoying but the software in these cases is working as designed.

        The reason "bug"-tracking systems are used this way is because it wo
        • Point taken and it's good that us lowly lusers have a way to give direct feedback to developers about what we like and don't like about a program. That's what I like about Mozilla.

          However, users still should be educated about the difference between what's a bug and what's not a bug.
          • It's really issue, change or ticket tracking, rather than bug tracking.

            But ChangeZilla, TicketZilla or IssueZilla aren't as clear as bugzilla.

            It's easier to overload the most common term, instead of using a general term that risks being ambiguous.
      • Which is why the commercial packages in this area bill themselves as 'Change Request Management systems'. And are neutral about the nature of the change, be it a defect, enhancement, non-functional fix (typo) or change to non-deliverable documentation/data or tool.

        Please notice how I do not talk of 'bugs', the correct word is 'Defect'. If we were more rigerous in reminding people (especially management and consumers) of this maybe the IT industry would finally deliver some quality.

    • Re:Uh... What is Bugzilla? (Score:5, Funny)

      by darkpurpleblob ( 180550 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @10:55PM (#11382446)
      Most commercial defect-tracking software vendors charge enormous licensing fees.
      Most commercial defect-tracking software vendors also provide usable search forms.

      • Re:Uh... What is Bugzilla? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        have you written up a list of complaints or suggestions?

        i'm not sure how unusable https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/query.cgi?format=spec ific is. but i'm certainly interested in finding out. please provide feedback via standard channels:
        https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug. cgi?product =Bugzilla&component=Query/Bug%20List
        news://news. mozilla.org/netscape.public.mozilla.we btools
        irc://irc.mozilla.org/mozwebtools
      • I know the above comment was somewhat facetious but the bugzilla.gnome.org search form [gnome.org] is perfectly usable.
      • Did you ever try searching on Rational Clear Quest. I have to use it now, but I am wishing my good old Bugzilla back!
        • LOL - I was about to post that exact same thing! ClearQuest is one of the worst systems for tracking bugs I have ever seen. Though I suspect that part of the problem is the lousy way my company customized it to setup the forms, it's still pretty bad that it on average takes 7-8 seconds to "checkout" a form for writing, 1-2 seconds to set a field on the form (for each field you want to set) and another 7-8 seconds to validate and check the form back in. That's in addition to the about 8 seconds it takes t
  • Does anyone have a good comparison of Bugzilla and Fog Creek Bugz [fogcreek.com]?

  • is bugzilla "good enought"? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've always hated bugzilla, don't know why. Well, one of the reasons is why everybody uses it via a web interface, not through a mailing list (like de debian bug tracking system).This is one of the reasons why kernel developers don't like bugzilla - you've to waste too many time through the web interfaces

    A bug tracking system should help to the developers, it shouldn't be a wall you've to break. I think new ideas are needed.

    1) Bugs should not have owners. This is th approach taken by Joel (thy joelonso
    • Don't know if this is a troll or not, but Bugzilla is pretty flexible. If you want to have strict access controls on BZ based on the owner, you can (and I suspect that this is how the mozilla instance is configured, but I've never used it), but that's certainy not required.....

      -Kelly

    • 1) Bugs should not have owners. This is th approach taken by Joel (thy joelonsoftware.com guy) when creating Fozbug.

      You have this exactly wrong. From here [joelonsoftware.com]:

      "...every bug needs to be assigned to exactly one person at all times, until it is closed."

    • ad mailing interface, you can if you really want. I.e. the ELinks Bugzilla [elinks.or.cz] has an email interface which works fine. It was only as a contrib/ patch in 2.16.3, dunno about 2.18.

      ad 1), that's just a configuration issue. By default, Bugzilla lets anyone registered do basically anything.

      ad 2), if you mean it to allow "offline bugfixing" (while sitting in an airplane), I think it just wouldn't fly. There is much greater potential for conflicts (which are more annoying to resolve) and it isn't really that dif

    • > I've always hated bugzilla, don't know why.

      Maybe you never really needed a bug-tracking system. If you try using one of
      its various competitors, such as Jitterbug or Mantis, you'll understand why
      Bugzilla is so popular: it's just better.

      Granted, there are some improvements that would be nice, and one of them is
      the ability, when it emails you notification of anything, to send an email
      reply back that does something useful with the bug in question, such as
      post an additional comment or change a field. A

  • Only on Slashdot.org... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Would we be celebrating a revision of bug tracking software.
  • I'm a bit lazy when it comes to installing and trying things, now i've been going in the doc (well, very lightly I must admit) but from what I understand, I need to be root on the box on which I would like to install this nice app.

    Is there a way, branch, doc or something that someone could point me to to install this to a remote web server with perl and everything installed, but just not root access? (like most reseller packages out there, with db access and all, but no rights to install stuff outside Ensi
    • It's mentioned in the docs - root access is not a requirement unless you want to create, say, a virtual host to run it from (like bugs.mysite.com instead of mysite.com/~username/bugs) or need to install additional perl packages. That is really the most difficult part of the setup. The files can reside anywhere and will be served up provided you have perl set up as the interpreter for .cgi files and have the proper perl packages, as well as a mysql database (not necessarily root on the db server). It may req
    • The instructions probably say to be root because that's the easiest way, but
      I'm pretty sure it's not strictly necessary. You do, however, need to be able
      to install modules off the CPAN which, if you're not root may involve more
      messing around.

  • Can bugzilla see different products per login? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Wing Lover ( 106357 ) <awh@awh.org> on Sunday January 16, 2005 @07:59PM (#11381579) Homepage
    I've used bugzilla before on projects that were solely internal. But now I'm working for a new company that does custom software development for outside customers. I'd like each customer to be able to log in and see their own bugs, but not any of the other customers' (ie, other projects') bugs. Of course, developers should see all bugs.

    So, is there a way to restricts the "products" that someone can see by login in Bugzilla?
  • Looking at the install guide, it says you need mySQL. For those who prefer PostgreSQL, does anyone know if Bugzilla works with it?

  • please don't misuse the term "goes gold" (Score:4, Informative)

    by JoeBuck ( 7947 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:12PM (#11381640) Homepage
    This term originated in the games industry, meaning that when the game was ready to be shipped, a master CD has been pressed and delivered to the publisher for production. The gold CD is used to stamp out the CDs that are actually shipped. It means that the final version of the game has been made, but you can't buy it yet because it still has to be shipped.

    The bugzilla guys aren't doing anything like this; it's free software after all, and you can get it today; "goes gold" means you can't get it yet, you still have to wait for the production ramp-up.

    • My, aren't we pedantic.

      Actually, what you've described is the origin of this particular "figure of speech", but that's all that it is now and most people here understand it as simply meaning that a product has been released. The term is not being misused, it's simply grown beyond its original usage. English is full of figures of speech and if we had to carefully examine every thing we say and write to ensure that the expressions we use are exactly congruous with the original usage...well English would be p
    • That's not even right. I have personally seen the term used well before CD-ROMs were in wide usage, and the Jargon File [catb.org] reports that it is old enough that "golden tape" was used.
    • Bzzzt! Wrong, please play again. The term was in use well before there was a games industry. The best explanation I have heard for the term is that it is derived from gold casting craft. You wouldn't waste any gold until the casting mold was "perfect".

  • Patch viewing! (Score:5, Informative)

    by ZiZ ( 564727 ) * on Sunday January 16, 2005 @08:13PM (#11381641) Homepage
    This is a marvelous new feature. From TFA:

    Patch Viewer
    ------------

    Viewing and reviewing patches in Bugzilla is often difficult due to lack of context, improper format and the inherent readability issues that raw patches present. Patch Viewer is an enhancement to Bugzilla designed to fix that by offering increased context, linking to sections, and integrating with Bonsai, LXR and CVS.

    Now instead of just being able to see what's already changed, you can see what a proposed patch will change, where it will change it, and what the code nearby the patch is. It may seem like a small thing in any individual case, but this will likely save huge amounts of developer time.

    Props to the Bugzilla team! They've always had a fantastic product, and this release looks like more and better.

  • web apps ever developed. Wow, it stinks.
  • Too bad it still looks like shit.

    Aesthetics are everything for common adoptance people! When will you realize this?!
  • Will the patches patch an .rpm install?

  • spammer's paradise (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mixmasta ( 36673 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @02:43AM (#11383368) Homepage Journal
    I hope they have addressed the design flaws that allow spammers to harvest addresses from it with ease. There's no reason email addresses have to be displayed to everyone. For instance, I use slashdot with no problems without displaying my address.

    I seem to remember them implementing some kind of kludge that munges the '@' symbol with a character entitiy. I think that is too little, too late myself.

    Beware: 90% of the spam I receive comes from my mozilla bugzilla email alias. I won't be joining any more bugzilla's because of this, until it's fixed at least.
    • Yes, they have changed it... though I haven't seen it in action yet.

      Email Address Munging
      ---------------------
      The fact that raw email addresses are displayed in Bugzilla makes it trivial for bots that spamharvest to spider through Bugzilla, in particular, through Bugzilla's buglists. This change adds HTML obfuscation of email addresses as they appear in the Bugzilla web pages.

  • Bugzilla is a critical part of the Free Software process - many projects rely on it and benefit greatly from its use.

    Depending on your needs, Bugzilla may be overkill for your own (inhouse) project. From what I read on various blogs, it's somewhat hard to administer and/or install. So if you need a bugtracking system, check out this commented list of alternatives [usefulinc.com]. Most of the systems in the list are free.

  • Bugzilla and Windows (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Bugzilla is one of the few Open Source applications that really have possibility for taking over significant "market share" at business world. But IMHO Buzilla still lacks several key features that would make it a really strong choise.

    Don't get me wrong. I have been using Bugzilla via web interface in a couple of ocassions and it has a lot of potential. Especially since other (commercial) bug tracking softwares are really crappy in general.

    What Bugzilla could really use:
    - Better user interface. We need re
    • > simple .msi installer that would install Apache, MySQL, Perl and any other needed software to get Bugzilla up and running as easily as possible.

      legally you can't do that with mysql. in order to bundle mysql with a product, that product must be gpl. bugzilla is mpl.

  • #41233 Blocking bug (Score:3, Funny)

    by macmurph ( 622189 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @06:15AM (#11383956)
    I hope they fixed bug #41233 "Fix problem with sucking"
  • While I realise that MYSQL is a viable back end DBMS on windows, I would like to know if there is any provision to use an ODBC data source and store data in different DBMS - such as SQLServer, DB2, Oracle etc. ? If not in version 2.18, then is this planned for any future release?

  • mod_perl support? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does it work with mod_perl yet? This was the biggest obstacle the last time I had a look at installing Bugzilla.

  • I'm curious if anyone has experience using Bugzilla and GForge.

    It looks as if Bugzilla might just be bug handling, while GForge is for an entire project management, including the funtionality of CVS/subverion.

    Sometimes the AllInOne approach is fast, flexible and easy to learn. But sometimes not.

    I'm wondering which way to go on a new project.

  • 2.18 is gone from the /pub/mozilla.org/webtools. you have a 2.16.x stable release and a 2.19.1. no 2.18 except release candidates. the download link from the bugzilla webpage gives a 404

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