Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Zero bugs (was Re: (Short?) merge window reminder) | From | Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... | Date | Fri, 27 May 2011 10:29:32 -0400 |
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On Thu, 26 May 2011 22:44:24 PDT, Keith Curtis said:
> However, it is common in companies to make an effort to get towards > zero bugs. Zero bugs is impossible, and that is a philosophical > discussion. If you look through your current list of bugs, nearly > every one looks scary to me and important to someone. You currently > have 2,800 active bugs (http://bit.ly/LinuxBugs) The last time I > looked, I found the median age was 10 months. In general, bugs should > be fixed in the next release and so therefore 3 months.
You may want to look at what percentage of those bugs were reported on one hardware platform by one reporter, and the reporter has since evaporated.
I myself started a thread back on April 26 regarding a wonky PS2->USB adapter. Within 24 hours I had a bunch of good suggestions for further debugging, none of which I've had a chance to actually follow up on (Hmm.. Monday is a holiday but nobody will be in the office, maybe I'll have a chance to get in the 4-5 reboots it will take.. :) So if I had opened a bug, how old is it, and who's fault is it that it's that old?
> Hitting zero, even for a minute, could be a newsworthy event, as another way > Linux is better than the others. It also shows leadership to user mode.
Never happen, as at least one of those 2,800 bugs will involve testing a fix on hardware the reporter no longer has, or the reporter is no longer available, or similar issues.
You also need to look at the *severity* of the bugs - my USB issue merely causes me literally 5 second's inconvenience every morning (part of why I haven't chased it further - it's hard to justify spending 45 minutes fixing a 5-second issue). If the reporter can't be bothered to help, what are we supposed to do? Then there's the oops and panic reports that should count for a lot more. How severe are most of those 2,800 bugs?
Probably a lot more productive than "zero bugs" would be "swat the top 10 entries in the kerneloops database", as we know by measurement that they're both pervasive and high-impact.
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