Canonical, Upgrading GNOME Bugzilla, and Commercial Sponsorship

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-04-05

Authored by: Sumana Harihareswara

You may have noticed the spiffy new GNOME Bugzilla. Sumana Harihareswara presents the story of how and why it came to be.

GNOME is asking for donations to hire a sysadmin. That’s because GNOME’s technological infrastructure—like source control, bug tracking, web and mail servers—make the rest of GNOME possible. Recently, Canonical found its efforts blocked by deficiencies in GNOME’s infrastructure. Specifically, our bugtracking software was too obsolete for them to programmatically interface with. So Canonical recently spent tens of thousands of USD to upgrade the GNOME Bugzilla instance from 2.20 to 3.4—including porting forward several beloved customizations.

The story started with Launchpad, Canonical’s collaborative development tool and the Ubuntu development hub. Launchpad has included a Remote Bug Watch feature from the start. Launchpad users could use this to associate Launchpad bugs with bugs in several external trackers. As Max Kanat-Alexander of consulting firm Everything Solved explains, “the most popular bug-tracker that Launchpad projects were interfacing without outside of Launchpad itself were Bugzilla installations.”

Canonical’s Christian Robottom Reis had previously worked on Bugzilla upstream, and appreciated it: “I know how cool a tool it is. We know organizations are invested in the tools they’ve chosen; we don’t expect them to come across to Launchpad for our primary benefit. So we’ve put work into making sure Launchpad plugs well into their infrastructure. All the work around bug watches, branch synchronization and translations emphasizes our coexistence with other tools.”

Kanat-Alexander had worked with Bugzilla upstream to add Launchpad integration capabilities to Bugzilla 3.4. As FLOSS projects upgrade to Bugzilla 3.4 and up, this may reduce bug duplication across the entire Linux ecosystem.

But a big part of the equation was missing. “In particular,” Kanat-Alexander continues, “the single most popular bug-tracker for Launchpad projects outside of Launchpad itself was the GNOME Bugzilla.” Since Ubuntu depends heavily on GNOME, Launchpad bugs often related to (or were duplicates of) GNOME bugs. As you can see from the list of remote bug trackers, GNOME has (at the time of writing) 15761 associated watches, as compared to the next highest bugtrackers, Debian at 12231 (followed by KDE, freedesktop.org, SourceForge.net, and Mozilla, all in the thousands).

But the remote watch didn’t work with GNOME’s fairly ancient Bugzilla. As Bugzilla development passed its 3.4 release and worked on 3.6, GNOME’s instance was still on 2.20, originally released in September 2005. And the age was showing. As Kanat-Alexander notes, “There were productivity issues, many needed new features, and serious, serious performance problems. Bugzilla 2.20 was WAY slower than version 3.0 or above, and it was on a old, slow server to boot.” Bugzilla 2.20 had been end-of-lifed in November 2008, so GNOME’s installation was also barred from getting security fixes.

Because of the disconnect, Ubuntu developers were wasting substantial time manually associating Launchpad and GNOME bugs. That bottleneck made Reis unhappy. “It’s hard to measure efficiency financially, but our view of engineering process is that it’s absolutely strategic to us. If engineers are spending time doing chores instead of engineering, we try hard to find tools to assist them,” Reis explains.

Canonical considered asking GNOME sysadmins to install a plugin that older bugtrackers, such as Bugzilla 3.0, can use to integrate better with Launchpad’s remote bug watch. “That plugin offers the same kind of API as Max’s additions to Bugzilla 3.4,” says Canonical engineer Graham Binns. “But the GNOME Bugzilla was, at the time, too out-of-date to be able to work with the plugin.”

GNOME Bugzilla had so many modifications that upgrading it would be arduous. “The GNOME resources available to upgrade Bugzilla to any version after 2.20 were basically nonexistent. Though Olav [Vitters] and the other system administrators had tried for many years to find the time and assistance to port forward the massive GNOME Bugzilla customizations (or even better, contribute them upstream), since everybody was operating on a volunteer basis, the time for such a massive project just couldn’t be found,” says Kanat-Alexander.

Canonical then offered to pay for Everything Solved to port forward key custom features (such as the Bug-Buddy interface, CSS customizations, and browse.cgi) as Bugzilla 3.4 features or extensions, and then upgrade GNOME’s bugtracker. Everything Solved’s initial estimate (for porting all customizations) had proven prohibitively expensive and lengthy for Canonical’s tastes, so Vitters, GNOME sysadmins and developers, and Everything Solved developed a list of key features to keep. They left some low-priority ones out, such as canned responses and the points system. The GNOME Foundation accepted this offer, acknowledging a tradeoff in some functional regressions just after the upgrade. Stormy Peters, GNOME Foundation Executive Director, was especially pleased to see improvements in GNOME infrastructure coming from a company, a consultant, and the GNOME Foundation working together.

Kanat-Alexander and Peters worked out an agreement, and in April 2009, the development work began. Graham Binns updated Launchpad’s bug syncing code to work with the API that Kanat-Alexander was adding to Bugzilla.

In August 2009, Everything Solved delivered the final customizations to GNOME’s volunteer sysadmins. The consultant and sysadmins moved Bugzilla to new servers donated by Red Hat, optimized MySQL performance, tested the new customizations, and then did the final rollout. To minimize downtime, Everything Solved also added upstream fixes to speed up the Bugzilla upgrade process.

GNOME bug-wranglers can now enjoy Bugzilla’s per-product permissions, duplicate prevention, localization, and myriad enhancements from the last few years. And Bugzilla users will get to enjoy several features that started with GNOME’s modifications. The browse.cgi view gives you a dashboard view of a project’s outstanding bugs and patches. Users can indicate the status of an attachment to a bug (e.g., “accepted-commit_now” or “needs-work”). Everything Solved also developed a stack-trace parsing extension, traceparser, for Bugzilla 3.6. All in all, Everything Solved upstreamed more than forty features or bugfixes.

GNOME-related Bugzilla contributions are still necessary, Vitters reminds us: we need to port Bugzilla 3.4 extensions to 3.6, and some customizations still haven’t gotten ported at all. But according to Kanat-Alexander:

“The community (particularly Frédéric Peters) stepped up to develop the most important of the ‘missing’ features that hadn’t been ported forward! Though before the upgrade it was almost impossible to get a review or any code assistance with developing customizations for Bugzilla, after the upgrade, with a ‘finished’ product in place, the contributions really started rolling in.”

Launchpad remote bug watch developers still have a lot of work to do from their end. Canonical is eager to see Mozilla, KDE, and Freedesktop.org upgrade their bugtrackers to improve Launchpad integration. GNOME was Canonical’s highest priority, though; “we haven’t worked officially with any other organization to get this installed,” says Reis, confirming GNOME’s critical importance to Ubuntu.

In short, the makers of Launchpad paid for improvements to Bugzilla, a competing product—not to mention that Ubuntu’s competitors will benefit from improvements to GNOME. As Reis notes, Canonical views this as “bridging the gap” from Ubuntu to upstream.

In the open source community we’re generally skeptical of bug bounties. We worry that paying for development work crowds out volunteer labor instead of adding to it, and degrades intrinsic motivation in favor of extrinsic rewards. And while branded parties and swag feel nice, it’s debatable how much they really contribute to FLOSS. But Canonical, GNOME, and Everything Solved have gone another route, using commercial sponsorship to address longstanding infrastructure rot. Canonical, Google, Collabora, and Nokia recently donated to aid in hiring a fulltime GNOME sysadmin, continuing in (hopefully) corporate/community partnership, not displacement.

Discuss this story with other readers on the GNOME forums.

This article originated in The GNOME Journal

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #187

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-04-04

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #187 for the week March 28th – April 3rd, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Mark Shuttleworth: Shooting for the Perfect 10.10 with Maverick Meerkat
* Ubuntu 10.04 beta 2 freeze now in effect
* Ubuntu 8.10 reaches End-Of-Life April, 30, 2010
* Call for Session Leaders for Ubuntu Open Week
* Ubuntu Manual Team call for help
* Ubuntu Stats
* LoCo Directory: Team Events app Rocks!
* Ubuntu Ireland Global Jam Review
* Help Translate the main LoCo Council page
* Ubuntu One contacts, now with merging!
* Kubuntu Netbook Edition ScreenKast
* At Home With Jono Bacon Podcast
* Better sounding music with Rhythmbox
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Ubuntu-UK Podcasts
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:

* John Crawford
* Craig Eddy
* Amber Graner
* Dave Bush
* Nathan Handler
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Shooting for the Perfect 10.10 with Maverick Meerkat

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-04-03

It’s time to put our heads together to envision “the perfect 10″.

This is a time of great innovation and change in the Linux world, with major new initiatives from powerful groups bringing lots of new ideas, new energy and new code. Thanks to the combined efforts of Google, Intel, IBM, Canonical, Red Hat, Oracle, Cisco, ARM, many other companies, Debian and other projects, a hundred startups and tens of thousands of professional and inspired contributors, the open source ecosystem continues to accelerate. We need to bring the best of all of that work into focus and into the archive. For millions of users, Ubuntu represents what Free Software can do out of the box for them. We owe it to everybody who works on Free Software to make that a great experience.

At the Ubuntu Developer Summit, in May in Belgium, we’ll have a new design track, and a “cloud and server” track, reflecting some major focal points in 2010. They will complement our ongoing work on community, desktop, kernel, quality assurance, foundations and mobile.

Our new theme is “Light”, and the next cycle will embrace that at many levels. We have a continued interest in netbooks, and we’ll revamp the Ubuntu Netbook Edition user interface. As computers become lighter they become more mobile, and we’ll work to keep people connected, all day, everywhere. We’ll embrace the web, aiming for the lightest, fastest web experience on any platform. The fastest boot, the fastest network connect, the fastest browser. Our goal is to ensure that UNE is far and away the best desktop OS for a netbook, both for consumers and power users.

On the other end of the spectrum, we’ll be lightening the burden of enterprise deployment with our emphasis on hybrid cloud computing. Ubuntu Server is already very popular on public clouds like EC2 and Rackspace, and now that Dell supports the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud for private cloud infrastructure, it’s possible to build workloads that run equally well in your data center or on the cloud. We’ll focus on making it even easier to build those workloads and keep them up to date, and managing the configurations of tens, or tens of thousands, of Ubuntu machines running in the cloud.

It’s not all about work. We don’t just want to be connected to the internet, we want to be connected to each other. Social from the Start is our initiative to make the desktop a collaborative, social place. For the past five years, we’ve all been shifting more and more data into the web, to a series of accounts and networks elsewhere. Now it’s time to start to bring those social networks back into our everyday computing environment. Our addressbooks and contact lists need to be synchronized and shared, so that we have the latest information everywhere – from mobile phones to web accounts.

So there’s a lot to do. I hope you’ll join us in shaping that work.

Introducing the Maverick Meerkat

Our mascot for 10.10 is the Maverick Meerkat.

This is a time of change, and we’re not afraid to surprise people with a bold move if the opportunity for dramatic improvement presents itself. We want to put Ubuntu and free software on every single consumer PC that ships from a major manufacturer, the ultimate maverick move. We will deliver on time, but we have huge scope for innovation in what we deliver this cycle. Once we have released the LTS we have plenty of room to shake things up a little. Let’s hear the best ideas, gather the best talent, and be a little radical in how we approach the next two year major cycle.

Meerkats are, of course, light, fast and social – everything we want in a Perfect 10. We’re booting really fast these days, but the final push remains. Changes in the toolchain may make us even faster for every application. We’re Social from the Start, but we could get even more tightly connected, and we could bring social features into even more applications. Meerkats are family-oriented, and we aspire to having Ubuntu being the safe and efficient solution for all the family netbooks. They are also clever – meerkats teach one another new skills. And that’s what makes this such a great community.

Here’s looking at the Lynx

Lucid is shaping up beautifully, but there’s still a lot to be done to make it the LTS we all want. Thanks to everyone who is bringing their time, energy and expertise to bear on making it outstanding. And I’m looking forward to the release parties, the brainstorming at UDS, and further steps on our mission to bring free software to the world, on free terms.

[Discuss Maverick Meerkat on the Forum]

Originally posted by Mark Shuttleworth here on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 am

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #186

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-03-28

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #186 for the week March 21st – March 27th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Mark Shuttleworth: Less is more. But still less
* Ubuntu Server Survey 2010 released
* Ubuntu One Music Store now in public beta
* Ubuntu One Blog: Updates to web contacts
* Ubuntu Stats
* Call for LoCo Council Elections
* Launchpad read-only 11.00-13.00 UTC March 31st, 2010
* Planning For 10.10 – Growing Our Translations Community
* Ubuntu participates in Google Summer of Code
* Reviewers Team – Where are we?
* Ubuntu 10.04 LTS – Free Culture Showcase Winners!
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Full Circle Magazine #35 & Podcast #3
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:
* John Crawford
* Craig A. Eddy
* Dave Bush
* Amber Graner
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Interview with Amber Graner

By boredandblogging | Published: 2010-03-28

Amber Graner

Penelope Stowe: Please tell us a little about yourself.

Amber Graner: First, thanks for asking me to do the interview. I have to say I am usually the one on the other side asking the questions so this is fun twist. I am an Ubuntu user advocate, active Ubuntu community member, Ubuntu User Magazine Blogger and Contributor, and event planner as well as a wife and mom. I am quirky, energetic, loquacious, driven, and funny.

PS: You strongly self identify as a “non-technical end user” or NTEU, do you find this makes you unique in the Ubuntu Community? Do you think there’s a potential that you will move from “non-technical” to technical?

AG: Nope, as I am not the only person who self identifies as an NTEU, however, I think it is only a perspective though. For example, my husband is someone who has worked with Open Source/Linux companies since the early 90s, so compared to him I am not technical, however when I visit other family or friends who may not know what Ubuntu is then many times I am the technical person. Would I like to become more technical? Yes, but not because I want to become a “developer,” but because I would like to know how and why Ubuntu and the applications I use daily work, so I know where to find information and become a better user advocate when people ask me questions about Ubuntu and what or how they can get involved.

PS: You’ve recently become the leader of the Ubuntu Women Project, what would you like to see happen with the project under your direction?

AG: As the UW Project leader, it is important to me that I stay focused on insuring the direction and goals of the team are kept on track and that we as a group have continually movement. I feel strongly about making sure we have regular reoccurring meetings, helping to identify new goals for each release cycle to accomplish the long-term roadmap goals. I am also focusing on the leadership election process that will take place after UDS-M. I want to make sure the terms, responsibilities, and procedures for these yearly elections are in place. These team elections will help the UW Project identify where we can improve, and help other team members recognize their potential as leaders. Through these initiatives the visibility of the UW Project will increase. More importantly it should also increase the visibility of the contributions of women within and outside of the Ubuntu Community in order to provide examples, role models and mentors to help more women become involved in the Ubuntu Project. This visibility of women within the community will help form a cohesive team and network of women who become stronger users, contributors, developers, advocates and voices within the Ubuntu Community. Seems like a lot, but in just the short period of time since UDS-L, we are meeting about every two weeks, discussions for -M goals have started, and at the end of USD-M the elections process should kick off –I think that speaks more for the strength UW Project team than it does about me, as we have an awesome team in place!

PS: In your blog you discuss how the phrase “Linux for human beings” is what brought you into trying Ubuntu, what is it that you think makes Ubuntu do this so well?

AG: I have to admit when I first heard “Linux for human beings” I laughed! I heard people telling me for 15+ years oh this is easy –ha! not for the mere mortal end user it like me it wasn’t. I truly believe gone are the “by the techie for the techie” days and Ubuntu is changing that.

The fact that average Ubuntu end users don’t have to use the command line, know all the technical jargon, or even how it all works is a great benefit. It’s not perfect but neither is *any* other OS. However, Ubuntu is more than a distribution, it is a community as well.

PS: You’ve done quite a lot in the year since you started using Ubuntu, is there anything you haven’t done that you’d like to try?

AG: Hmmm, that’s tough, I come across stuff everyday that I want to do, but I am aware that I can’t take on anymore until I have handed off some of the things I am currently doing to others. I want to learn more about the “opportunistic developer,” I’d like to learn how to write something so I understand more about it. I want to learn how to write scripts as well. I would like to figure out how to triage bugs and spend some time testing development releases. I want to highlight more community people/loco teams through various interviews. Oh and the list grows, but in the end it is the Ubuntu Community and the average end user that hold my interest and I want to improve how to encourage more people to use and contribute to the Ubuntu Project/Community.

PS: Outside of your Ubuntu work, is there any women in open source or open source work you do?

AG: I help plan Linux Fests, currently working with Atlanta Linux Fest, Southeast Linux Fest and others. I am not a member of any other WIOS groups not because I am not interested, there just aren’t any near where I live, but I do try to speak to members and other leaders of those groups when I am at events so that I can learn from their initiates and experiences.

I contribute to the newest Linux New Media publication Ubuntu User Magazine on the You-In-Ubuntu Blog (http://www.ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu) and print articles (http://www.ubuntu-user.com/Magazine/Archive/2010/4).

PS: What’s the best thing that’s happened to you because of your work with Ubuntu?

AG: First and foremost, I became a Linux user and became an active member of the awesome Ubuntu Community! Aside that it would have to be working with Ubuntu User and Linux Pro Magazine’s and reviewing The Art of Community by Jono Bacon.

PS: Do you have any other interests or activities you’d like to tell us about?

AG: I have been invited by the America Dairy Goat Association to step an Ubuntu Booth at the Goat Festival and Parade in Spindale, NC. I am hoping NC LoCo team will want to participate and maybe we can even have a float – who knows. This is going to be a fun new way to introduce Ubuntu to my small area of the world.

[Discuss Amber Graner’s Interview on the Forum]

Originally posted by Penelope Stowe in Full Circle Magazine Issue #35 on March 27, 2010