8 ms·

I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

146 points by luu 12y ago

zabcik 12y ago
I bet this guy's going to get swamped in the next few hours.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
gfosco 12y ago
He's not only filing the bug, but also attempting to reproduce it. In the vein of doing things that don't scale, this idea is a clear winner. It does seem like a valuable service: The project would get a verified/reproduced bug report from a known entity, and the reporter would get their issue addressed just by sending an email. Under/over on how long before he can't offer this for free?
- knappe 12y ago
  It was first posted on `14 August 2014`. So my guess is no one has really taken him up on the offer.
  - Trufa 12y ago
    Well, it's getting a lot of attention now.
bcook 12y ago
I have always been ashamed that I rarely consider reporting a bug. Though, most of the time I assume that the "bug" is caused by my ignorance. I think this man's efforts should be applauded. :) Good luck!
- quadrature 12y ago
  I know you're probably refering to open source projects, but a lot of software doesn't even have ways to report bugs to send feedback.
  - claudius 12y ago
    Isn’t it usually considered your distribution’s responsibility to handle that? They may have done god-knows-what to the software, so the bug might not even appear in the upstream release.
- cpeterso 12y ago
  Firefox has a feedback feature (in the Help menu). Mozilla watches the flood of feedback for keywords and correlations to identify bug regressions. And, in Mozilla fashion, the anonymous feedback and ugly truth is open for all to see: https://input.mozilla.org/ https://input.mozilla.org/
dukehoops 12y ago
Maybe I am off, but that read almost like sarcasm (see reference to "copious free time" in fine print).
- nanofortnight 12y ago
  The phrase "copious free time" is itself sarcastic, but it usually just implies "please be patient" rather than "I won't do it".
zem 12y ago
nice. however a more scalable approach would be a metabug site where people could post "it doesn't work" freeform text, and volunteers could accept a bug and resolve it when they had refiled it with the correct project.
- ploxiln 12y ago
  uh, I think they made that, and called it StackOverflow
  - mushly 12y ago
    You do know that's nowhere near being the purpose of StackOverflow, right?
    - ploxiln 12y ago
      heh, yeah, was a snarky joke, and in hindsight not my best
      - bastijn 12y ago
        Well, first to take the stackexchange and form BugOverflow wins :).
        sukilot 12y ago
        getsatisfaction.com Launchpad.net
benburwell 12y ago
Interesting idea, letting someone more familiar with the project make a bug report. It's almost like crowdsourcing tech support. I wrote about how open source project bug trackers aren't as inviting as they might be a few months ago: https://www.benburwell.com/posts/open-bug-tracking-empowers-users/ https://www.benburwell.com/posts/open-bug-tracking-empowers-....
- Eridrus 12y ago
  I agree that JIRA is probably not what you want as your user-facing bug tracker, but Bugzilla seems significantly less complicated, and the github issue tracker is easier still (though I think it is over-simplified for a user-facing bug tracker). Someone above mentioned wanting free form bug trackers, but this runs into the problem of bad bug reports. You want bug reports that you can reproduce, or at least some artifacts such as crash dumps or stack traces that give you something to analyze. Short of that you're left guessing about what the problem is. Hence, bug trackers tend to ask people for more information up front so that there is less back and forth.
MicroBerto 12y ago
He could get paid for doing this over at https://www.pay4bugs.com https://www.pay4bugs.com
rasz_pl 12y ago
article text is 190 pixels wide in 1600px wide browser window, maybe it should file this bug for me too?
- chris_b 12y ago
  768px in my 1920px screen. Stays that way when I resize to 1600px. Could not reproduce?
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  http://i.imgur.com/0c1fGpR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/0c1fGpR.jpg
  - bcook 12y ago
    Holy crap! Do you really have ~100 browser tabs open?
    - rasz_pl 12y ago
      Takes <2GB ram and doesnt cost a thing when starting up on SSD, so why not? Better than bookmarks ;-) On a serious note its the morning rush, goes down to ~30 by noon. I dont let stuff control my timing (like TV used to), instead I open everything in the background and read/watch at my own pace through the day (between coding/soldering).
jordigh 12y ago
Y'know what, I'll extend the same offer. I'll find any free software project and file a bug. I do it enough for myself, I can do it for someone else. jordigh@octave.org Tell me which bug to file.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
steveklabnik 12y ago
In 2011 I made a similar offer, to write patches for any documentation improvements to Ruby: http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2011-08-22-im-making-it-dead-simple-to-contribute-to-ruby-s-documentation http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2011-08-22-im-making-it-d... I think overall, about a dozen people took me up on it over the years.
robbrown451 12y ago
I like this. Less so for his actual offer, but more because he is calling attention to how hard it is to do this for people who don't want to deal with a "bug tracking system... optimized for people who spend all day every day working with it". It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc).....one sort of like Github or StackOverflow, where we all sort of agree to use that site.
- jlebar 12y ago
  > It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc) Having worked for Mozilla for 5 years (Zack also is a former Mozillian), I actually don't think that the root problem is the ease of use of the bug tracker. Although bugzilla sucks, we still managed to get a ton of bug reports from external folks. But getting the bug report is only the first step. Once you have it, you need to, at a minimum: a) Figure out what part of the software is causing this bug. For complex software like a browser, figuring this out often requires deep technical knowledge of the system, so is expensive time. b) Figure out if the bug is already known. This is again often nontrivial because one bug can manifest in ways that may look superficially dissimilar, so requires an expensive person's time. c) Collect additional information from the reporter. Most bug reports from muggles don't have enough information to let you reproduce the issue without additional back-and-forth. Since the bug reporter probably doesn't live in bugzilla like Mozilla folks do, they're usually slow to respond, if they respond at all. I've had bugs I worked on a week only to have the original reporter disappear. It's understandable; all this communication takes a lot of work. d) Reproduce the bug. If you can't reproduce, go to (c). e) If it's a regression, figure out when the bug was introduced. f) Figure out if the bug is fixed in alpha/beta/nightly builds. This is all before you actually try to write any code. Every step here is more difficult and risky when the reporter isn't a known entity, so as a result, if Zack or I file a bug against Firefox, all things being equal we're much more likely to be paid attention to than if a random person files a bug. It's just a basic cost-benefit analysis on the part of people who already have too much to do. I'd say that 80% of bugs I fixed while I worked on Firefox were identified by Mozillians (either employees or regular contributors). Which isn't to say that the remaining 20% weren't important -- they were, which is why I fixed them! But those 20% were a lot harder and riskier to fix, and that's not something I can imagine the best bug tracking software in the world ameliorating.
jeffdavis 12y ago
Normally, I think of ways to increase involvement with OSS communities. He's helping people, and probably learning in the process, which is great. But it would be even better if he could add a touch of "help people help themselves"; otherwise I'm concerned that the OSS process will feel a little more sterile.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I think providing a lightweight action->result cycle is just as or more likely to engage people as a process that requires a deeper involvement before there is any chance of a result.

146 points by luu 12y ago

zabcik 12y ago

I bet this guy's going to get swamped in the next few hours.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

gfosco 12y ago

He's not only filing the bug, but also attempting to reproduce it. In the vein of doing things that don't scale, this idea is a clear winner. It does seem like a valuable service: The project would get a verified/reproduced bug report from a known entity, and the reporter would get their issue addressed just by sending an email. Under/over on how long before he can't offer this for free?

knappe 12y ago
It was first posted on `14 August 2014`. So my guess is no one has really taken him up on the offer.
- Trufa 12y ago
  Well, it's getting a lot of attention now.

bcook 12y ago

I have always been ashamed that I rarely consider reporting a bug. Though, most of the time I assume that the "bug" is caused by my ignorance. I think this man's efforts should be applauded. :) Good luck!

quadrature 12y ago
I know you're probably refering to open source projects, but a lot of software doesn't even have ways to report bugs to send feedback.
- claudius 12y ago
  Isn’t it usually considered your distribution’s responsibility to handle that? They may have done god-knows-what to the software, so the bug might not even appear in the upstream release.
cpeterso 12y ago
Firefox has a feedback feature (in the Help menu). Mozilla watches the flood of feedback for keywords and correlations to identify bug regressions. And, in Mozilla fashion, the anonymous feedback and ugly truth is open for all to see: https://input.mozilla.org/ https://input.mozilla.org/

dukehoops 12y ago

Maybe I am off, but that read almost like sarcasm (see reference to "copious free time" in fine print).

nanofortnight 12y ago
The phrase "copious free time" is itself sarcastic, but it usually just implies "please be patient" rather than "I won't do it".

zem 12y ago

nice. however a more scalable approach would be a metabug site where people could post "it doesn't work" freeform text, and volunteers could accept a bug and resolve it when they had refiled it with the correct project.

ploxiln 12y ago
uh, I think they made that, and called it StackOverflow
- mushly 12y ago
  You do know that's nowhere near being the purpose of StackOverflow, right?
  - ploxiln 12y ago
    heh, yeah, was a snarky joke, and in hindsight not my best
    - bastijn 12y ago
      Well, first to take the stackexchange and form BugOverflow wins :).
      - sukilot 12y ago
        getsatisfaction.com Launchpad.net

benburwell 12y ago

Interesting idea, letting someone more familiar with the project make a bug report. It's almost like crowdsourcing tech support. I wrote about how open source project bug trackers aren't as inviting as they might be a few months ago: https://www.benburwell.com/posts/open-bug-tracking-empowers-users/ https://www.benburwell.com/posts/open-bug-tracking-empowers-....

Eridrus 12y ago
I agree that JIRA is probably not what you want as your user-facing bug tracker, but Bugzilla seems significantly less complicated, and the github issue tracker is easier still (though I think it is over-simplified for a user-facing bug tracker). Someone above mentioned wanting free form bug trackers, but this runs into the problem of bad bug reports. You want bug reports that you can reproduce, or at least some artifacts such as crash dumps or stack traces that give you something to analyze. Short of that you're left guessing about what the problem is. Hence, bug trackers tend to ask people for more information up front so that there is less back and forth.

MicroBerto 12y ago

He could get paid for doing this over at https://www.pay4bugs.com https://www.pay4bugs.com

rasz_pl 12y ago

article text is 190 pixels wide in 1600px wide browser window, maybe it should file this bug for me too?

chris_b 12y ago
768px in my 1920px screen. Stays that way when I resize to 1600px. Could not reproduce?
rasz_pl 12y ago
http://i.imgur.com/0c1fGpR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/0c1fGpR.jpg
- bcook 12y ago
  Holy crap! Do you really have ~100 browser tabs open?
  - rasz_pl 12y ago
    Takes <2GB ram and doesnt cost a thing when starting up on SSD, so why not? Better than bookmarks ;-) On a serious note its the morning rush, goes down to ~30 by noon. I dont let stuff control my timing (like TV used to), instead I open everything in the background and read/watch at my own pace through the day (between coding/soldering).

jordigh 12y ago

Y'know what, I'll extend the same offer. I'll find any free software project and file a bug. I do it enough for myself, I can do it for someone else. jordigh@octave.org Tell me which bug to file.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

steveklabnik 12y ago

In 2011 I made a similar offer, to write patches for any documentation improvements to Ruby: http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2011-08-22-im-making-it-dead-simple-to-contribute-to-ruby-s-documentation http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2011-08-22-im-making-it-d... I think overall, about a dozen people took me up on it over the years.

robbrown451 12y ago

I like this. Less so for his actual offer, but more because he is calling attention to how hard it is to do this for people who don't want to deal with a "bug tracking system... optimized for people who spend all day every day working with it". It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc).....one sort of like Github or StackOverflow, where we all sort of agree to use that site.

jlebar 12y ago
> It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc) Having worked for Mozilla for 5 years (Zack also is a former Mozillian), I actually don't think that the root problem is the ease of use of the bug tracker. Although bugzilla sucks, we still managed to get a ton of bug reports from external folks. But getting the bug report is only the first step. Once you have it, you need to, at a minimum: a) Figure out what part of the software is causing this bug. For complex software like a browser, figuring this out often requires deep technical knowledge of the system, so is expensive time. b) Figure out if the bug is already known. This is again often nontrivial because one bug can manifest in ways that may look superficially dissimilar, so requires an expensive person's time. c) Collect additional information from the reporter. Most bug reports from muggles don't have enough information to let you reproduce the issue without additional back-and-forth. Since the bug reporter probably doesn't live in bugzilla like Mozilla folks do, they're usually slow to respond, if they respond at all. I've had bugs I worked on a week only to have the original reporter disappear. It's understandable; all this communication takes a lot of work. d) Reproduce the bug. If you can't reproduce, go to (c). e) If it's a regression, figure out when the bug was introduced. f) Figure out if the bug is fixed in alpha/beta/nightly builds. This is all before you actually try to write any code. Every step here is more difficult and risky when the reporter isn't a known entity, so as a result, if Zack or I file a bug against Firefox, all things being equal we're much more likely to be paid attention to than if a random person files a bug. It's just a basic cost-benefit analysis on the part of people who already have too much to do. I'd say that 80% of bugs I fixed while I worked on Firefox were identified by Mozillians (either employees or regular contributors). Which isn't to say that the remaining 20% weren't important -- they were, which is why I fixed them! But those 20% were a lot harder and riskier to fix, and that's not something I can imagine the best bug tracking software in the world ameliorating.

jeffdavis 12y ago

Normally, I think of ways to increase involvement with OSS communities. He's helping people, and probably learning in the process, which is great. But it would be even better if he could add a touch of "help people help themselves"; otherwise I'm concerned that the OSS process will feel a little more sterile.

maxerickson 12y ago
I think providing a lightweight action->result cycle is just as or more likely to engage people as a process that requires a deeper involvement before there is any chance of a result.