Lemma's blog - bugsquad

Bugsquad logo contest

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:49:49 +0200

Having gathered a quite nicely numbered group of core-triagers during the last 12 months we thought it was time to reflect that by putting together a nice website for collecting some bits of our wisdom and promoting our triage and krush events. This is currently still a work-in-progress but one thing we can't do properly ourselves is to design a logo.

Therefore I'm hereby announcing the Bugsquad logo contest. Details:

The logo is going to be used on a site using the Oxygen website scheme (like http://techbase.kde.org)
It wouldn't hurt if it looked good on a T-Shirt
More information about what we do can be found here and gathered on our IRC channel
Send your submission to bugsquad@kde.org
Deadline is the 25th of May

Unfortunately we're not sure if we can provide a prize yet. If you decide to join the competition you're currently only in for the fame (and probably a beer at Akademy). I'll keep you posted if we come up with something.

Bugsquad Plasma triage

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:20:52 +0200

Bugsquad's 1-year reinstatement celebration was a blast. We managed to triage around 330 KMail bugs! Without investigating any further I guess that's a new record for one of our Bug Days. Thanks go out to everyone in the party crowd (Blauzahl, FiNeX, dtritscher, lytenyn, jtamate, Dario_Andres, CondorDes and Ruchir - who apparently partied harder than anyone else ).

This weekend we'll be having a closer look at Plasma's bugs. After having a slow start during KDE 4.0 and 4.1 Plasma has hit the bugs.kde.org shelf with the 4.2 release and is currently approaching the 600 bug-report mark. Time to have a closer look and weed out the duplicate and invalid ones - especially now the hardening phase for KDE 4.3 is just around the corner. So instead of making the Plasma developers wade the Bugzilla swamps all by themselves we thought we'd lend them a hand to make KDE 4.3's bling even blingier, nice and stable.

As more eyes make more bugs inspected I invite all of you to join us for our little bug triage:

This weekend, 25th/26th of April
All day long
#kde-bugs on FreeNode IRC
You'll find more information on http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Bugsquad/BugDays/PlasmaDay1 - at least once that page is ready.

Bugsquad turns 1. Celebration lasting all weekend...

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:23:55 +0200

As you might already have read on the dot, Bugsquad (or rather this incarnation of it) will turn 1 this weekend. Our very first Bug Day was held on April the 6th 2008 (proof). Incidentally this will also the 1 year anniversary of the day I started contributing to KDE It has been a nice year and I while we haven't achieved either of our goals (0 open bugs in KDE or world domination) yet, it has still been an awesome time. I'd like to say everyone working on bugs and especially everyone who helped me getting started a big thank you.

Enough of that retrospective.

Everyone knows Bugsquad parties hard (admittedly a little softer then Amarok people but still harder than most of you non-Bugsquatting fellas). As such you're all invited to our big Bugsquad 1 Year Anniversary Party we're having all weekend long (BYOB). The party is themed "KMailDay4: Let the triage ~~begin~~ continue" and will run from Saturday 10:00 CET to Sunday late at night.

KMailDay3 details

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:30:05 +0100

I managed to finish tomorrow's KMail triage page just in time. For anyone who's not on #kde-bugs (which you should be if you're planning to join the triage currently, here's the url: http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Bugsquad/BugDays/KMailDay3. If you're still pondering wether to join, just do it. Any helping hand - be it developer or user - is welcome and helping hands we need a lot

A krush on KOffice && revisiting KMail

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:31:22 +0100

While our KOffice krush day is already more than a month ago (25th of January) it still deserves someone blogging about it. It was a great pleasure to see 9 people working hard on finding issues in KOffice and - no surprise - issues we did find. In total we identified about 100 separate crashes, general bugs as well as some ways to improve usability. I was also happy to see some of the most important ones be fixed while we were still finding new ones. Time to send a big thankyou to jtamate, grundleborg, blauzahl, m4v, dtritsched, JLP, Enkithan and brot as well as all of the hard-working KOffice developers who spent their time coaching and answering questions. On to the actual topic. I'm happy to announce (another) beginning of the bug triage season. Since the KDE 4.2 came out, the general bug count on bugs.kde.org has pretty much been skyrocketing. Of course we're regulary introducing new bugs with every release but I guess that 4.2 also marked the point where a lot more regular users were joining the KDE4-using crowd. This does not only lead to more bugs being found but - sadly - also to more people reporting the same bugs or reporting simple support issues on our bugtracker. That's where our next Bugday will come into play. We'll be revisiting KMail once more hoping to find duplicate bug reports, already resolved issues and generally clean up. If you're willing to help, you're very welcome to join us on #kde-bugs this Sunday (the 15th) starting around 10:00 CET. I think I mentioned it before but I'll do it again just for the record: No programming skills needed. All you'll have to bring are a recent version of KDE (preferably trunk), some time to spare and the will to make a little difference. Of course we'll have senior Bugsquadders around to help newcomers get started.

KOffice krush reminder

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:24:11 +0100

Just in case you missed the announcement on the dot (or chose to forget):

This sunday, January the 25th, we'll be having our second KOffice Bug Day. It will all be about finding as many of the remaining bugs in KOffice Beta 5 as possible. To contribute, just read the bug day's techbase page, check the requirements and visit #kde-bugs somewhen on sunday (starting around 10am CET). As always, no programming skills required.

Is it worth it?

Most definitely. Our last KOffice bug day was a what I'd call a big success with the KOffice developers starting to iron out the bug while we were still triaging and krushing. They are really passionate about delivering good quality release.

Bugzilla->{speed}++;

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:29:27 +0100

During the last week I've been working hard on the Bugzilla sources (I've even been learning some Perl ) trying to make searchers faster. It made a rather lengthy blogpost (containing some big pictures though) and I wasn't sure if the general Planet KDE audience was that much interested in it as it's only partly related to KDE. So to avoid spamming the Planet all over I decided to make it a separate post which doesn't get syndicated. It might be interesting to you if you're into Bugzilla, full-text search or semi-fancy benchmarking graphs.

Here you go...

KMailDay2: Sunday 9th of November

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:23:03 +0100

As you might have read on the dot, Bugsquad is having a KDE PIM party tomorrow, and you're all invited

Techbase page for the triage
IRC Channel
We'll be starting at around 08:00 UTC.

I usually try to be more elaborate but as I'm currently quite busy the bare facts will have to do. I also still want to do a follow-up to our previous KOffice Triage + Krush day so expect more during the next few days.

KOfficeDay1: Krush mastery

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:55:28 +0200

As you might have read on the dot, we'll be having our first ever (?) KOffice Bug Day this Sunday the 26th. KOffice 2 has just reached its beta2 release and I for my part can't wait to check it out - user- as well as bug-wise As a special bonus BugSquad won't just triage bugs but also do some krushing. Now as I heard that "Krushing is a confusing term" I thought I'd put together some information about it similar to what I wrote about The Art of Bug Triage. This time I did however put all of it on the accompanying techbase wiki page which I assembled in preparation of Sunday. So here I present you:

KOffice Bug Day 1: Triage
KOffice Bug Day 1: Krush (aka Krush Mastery)

(Please note that some parts of those pages are still subject to change.) As always we'll be starting at around 07:00 UTC (beware of summer time! don't miss out on your extra hour of sleep). I also heard that quite some of the KOffice developers will be hanging out with us on #kde-bugs so we can bug them with our questions. I'm looking forward to it

Konqueror Bug Day 6 this Sunday

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:56:57 +0200

The KDE Bugsquad is happy to announce yet another Konqueror Bugday. According to my sources this will be the 6th sunday dedicated to triaging the hell out of Konqueror since KDE4 came out. And it's very much needed regarding konqueror is still the lonely leader in our bug statistics. Of course this doesn't neccessarily mean that good old Konqi is the buggiest of all KDE applications out there - don't forget that it was one of the components getting the biggest exposure in KDE3 (in addition to the many "website xyz doesn't work" bugs). So, if you feel like helping to get that number of bugs down by looking through some of them, drop by on #kde-bugs. Some of our master-triagers will also be around to help you get going. You might also already start by reading through the according wiki page. As always there are almost no requirements - no coding skills needed. Just be sure to have a recent version of KDE4 around and bring some time.

KDEPimDay1 results, next buday: Konqueror

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:40:10 +0200

Our KDEPimDay1 was quite successful - although we didn't have as many helping hands around as I had hoped for. In total we managed to triage around 200 pim- and groupware-related bugs, about 50 of which will be closed for good in the next few days. A big thank you to everyone involved, people triaging bugs, people offering their servers for the bugday as well as the KDE PIM people who were around to answer our questions and get started on some of the bugs. Sidenote 1: Most of the groupware servers will stay around. So if you're a PIM developer or want to improve support for your favourite groupware server, feel free to come to #kde-bugs and ask for access. Sidenote 2: On my last post liquidat asked for more than sheer numbers as results to our bugday. So this goes out to everyone trying the different groupware connectors: Which groupware servers worked the best, which didn't work at all? Next Sunday (12th of October) we'll be back to a good old friend: Konqueror. I'd like to invite you to join the triage. As always there's no special prerequisites but having a recent version of KDE (4.1.x or trunk). Additionally people with HTML and CSS skills are usually warmly welcomed - they tend to be masters at constructing Konqueror testcases. I think I can also already announce that we'll be doing a KOffice bugday a few weeks from now, laying our hands on one of their pre-releases! And this one won't just be the regular triage but will also need the secret technique of krushing (secret!), so stay tuned.

KDEPimDay1 reminder and OpenGroupware

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:25:16 +0200

Bad weather, nothing to do and/or eager to help your favourite free software project? The KDE BugSquad PimDay will be starting this sunday at around 07:00 UTC. Join #kde-bugs on FreeNode to join the bugsquashing.

I just received notice that Sebastian (whooha in #kde-bugs/#ogo on FreeNode) provides us with an OpenGroupware server (GroupDAV, more information can be found on his page). Thanks a lot!
Further I'd like to thank Intevation GmbH and Bernhard Reiter for providing us with accounts on their Kolab2 testsystem!

More information/scheduling for KDEPimDay1

KdePimDay and Groupware details

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:47:30 +0200

As promised in my last blog (read here) here's some extra information on the groupware servers, the PIM applications and which versions you need for triaging.

Servers which require KDE 4.1.x or newer

eGroupware, XML-RPC
Kolab2, IMAP
regular IMAP (Kolab1)
OpenXchange
LDAP

Servers which require KDE compiled from trunk, newer than r862285

Citadel, GroupDAV
eGroupware, GroupDAV

For directions getting a recent version of KDE from our repositories running,

see the techbase build instructions,
or consult your distribution which might provide packages for you

Preregistration

To get access to the servers, please preregister by sending a (possibly signed) mail to lemma (at) confuego (dot) org so I can verify your email address and identity - as well as send you back your credentials in a secure way. If you don't have a trusted key, you'll still be able to use at least half of the servers as they are running on VMs and have EMail turned off. Latecomers will be able to register while the event is running, but please bear in mind that creating the accounts on-the-fly will require you to wait a while.

When and where?

We'll be starting the triage this Sunday around 07:00 UTC. To join in just direct your IRC client to our IRC channel (#kde-bugs on FreeNode) and say something like "Hi, I'm here to help" We'll also provide help setting up your kontact with the servers.

Special bugday: kdepim and groupware servers, 28th of September

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:47:23 +0200

KMailDay2 summary

The last bugday (KMailDay2) worked out quite well. We were able to close around 40 bugs which were no longer there and confirm 43 bugs which (unfortunately) still have to be fixed. All in all we looked at around 130-150 bugs. While this doesn't sound like much it's actually more than you might think. Some of those little bastards were quite hard to track down. I'd like to thank everyone who took part:

grundleborg
jtamate
gkiagia
dtritscher
sahaqiel
xvalentinex
Mamarok
trictric
katastrophe
vperic
blauzahl
(yes, I did just copy the names from the wiki page. Sorry if you were in but I forgot you

Thanks also to those brave kdepimsters who were around to answer our questions and already started getting some bugs fixed.

What's up next?

While KMail is still the product with the most bugreports in our bugzilla, we decided to do something different on our next bugday. Therefore we'll be triaging the rest of the kdepim suite with our main focus on the various Groupware Servers it can connect to. We'll be (at least) offering access to the following servers:

Citadel/GroupDAV
Apache/GroupDAV
eGroupware/XML-RPC
Kolab2/dIMAP
OpenXchange
LDAP

Again our focus will be on trying to reproduce old bugs but I guess we might also find new bugs that weekend. Why not Exchange I hear you asking? Well, while the server is already up and running, the Akonadi OpenChange resource - which was written during one of this summer's SoC projects - is not entirely ready yet and - being bleeding edge - also needs some extra stuff compiled. I'll keep you posted in case it gets ready before we start the Bugday. Apart from the applications connecting to those servers, mostly kaddressbook, korganizer and knotes (+ kontact), you'll of course also be allowed to triage either of the other kdepim applications like akregator or knode (hell, even more kmail if you want to ).

What do I need to take part?

Software

For most of the groupware servers you'll be good with any KDE 4.1 release. Some of them, especially GroupDAV and Exchange (if we get it working), will require you to either compile KDE yourself (see build KDE4 from trunk or kdesvn-build) or use some recent daily snapshots from your distribution. We'll be providing instructions on how to connect to the servers some days in advance of the bugday.

Optional: Registration

Some of the groupware servers might be offered by third parties and might need a preregistration so we can get you an account. For others you'll have the benefit of having your account ready when the Bugday starts (= no wait). Stay tuned for some information on that during the next week...

Date and time

The bugday will start on Sunday the 28th some time after the sun has risen in Europe.

IRC, Mailinglist and Website

Bugsquad mostly communicates using the Bugsquad mailinglist and our IRC channel (#kde-bugs on FreeNode). We're currently also working on our own website for providing information about past and upcoming events. You can have a look at http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Bugsquad/Website for some WiP.

The art of bug triage, KMail bugday on sunday (+ hello planet)

nospam@example.com (Michael Leupold) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:23:49 +0200

First of all a big hello to everyone reading this. This is my first blogpost syndicated on planetkde (actually it's the first one ever) so I'll introduce myself shortly:

Name: Michael Leupold
ASL: 29/m/Karlsruhe, Germany
Working on: kwallet and bugsquad

Thanks to Jonathan Riddell for taking no longer than 2 minutes for getting my blog on the planet So now on to something a little more interesting...

The art of bug triage (which is not really an art but it somehow sounded catchy)

Today I'll try to explain the concept of that mysterious triage thing Bugsquad is doing. Some people seem to think it's about finding and fixing bugs but actually it's not.

So, what is bug triage all about? Basically bug triage is the task of grabbing a bug one of our users reported on bugs.kde.org and trying to reproduce it using the information the reporter provided.
Why recheck all those bugs? Most of the bugs we check date back to older relases of KDE. That means they could have been fixed in newer KDE releases. Maybe the developer fixing it wasn't aware of the bug, maybe the bug got fixed "accidentally". Our goal is to not have developers waste time on bugs that don't exist any longer. Even checking new bugs is beneficial. Sometimes the description on a bug report will be easy to understand and reproducable, but quite some times you'll have to gather some additional information on how to expose the buggy behaviour. Our goal is to have developers spend more time on fixing bugs than understanding what a bug's reporter was trying to say.
How does bug triage help KDE? By closing bugs that are no longer there we limit the number of bugs the developers have to take care of. By providing additional information we help them save time understanding and fixing the bugs. Sometimes we also manage to direct their attention to what we deem important to fix. Our main objective is raising KDE's quality.
What do I need to help? Not much really. You should be able to operate an IRC client and your favourite browser. You also need a current release of KDE (4.1 is ok, 4.1.1 is good, compiled from trunk is best) and some patience.
I'm thrilled to help. Where do I sign up? While there's always someone around on our IRC channel we usually meet on planned Bugdays where we all work on a common part of KDE. If you're interested you can also signup to our mailinglist: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/bugsquad
References
- http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Bugsquad
- http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Bugsquad/Guide