Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Inspired by Stskeeps' posting I realized that Karsten and me started working on maemo.org Bugzilla quite exactly two years ago.
Instead of blogging my point of view I really love the idea to also ask the community for a review of our work as Stskeeps did.

So I ask you to please post what comes to your mind related to our job - what you think was/is good and what was/is bad. (For both categories I have some expected comments in my mind but I'd appreciate your impressions and feedback first...)

And if you have not the slightest idea what a "bugmaster" job means and hear about this for the very first time: Have a quick look at our wiki.

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

I have this mental image of you as being a bit like a lion tamer going into the cage with the bugs and beating them back with a chair and a whip...

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Hmm, interesting. I hope that somebody can photoshop that. :-)

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

What do I see from your work? I see your reaction when I file a bug (or comment on one).

What I really, really appreciate is that you give me the feeling that each and every entry in bugzilla is of value. If only by closing it as a duplicate, which means you looked at it, took the time to understand what it means and try to check for similar entries. (Which takes some skills... I usually do search before I open a new bug, still you seem to know better how to search for what :) ...)

You know how to communicate in a way that's perfectly clear and effective, yet friendly and respectful.

And I just love the effort you put into housekeeping. Adding new m,ilestones to old bugs, copypasting information about which release will most likely include the fix for this and that bug to each of those bugs... etc.

That's what I see, and what I see I like. I don't follow community channels other than t.m.o. so there's probably more bugmaster work I don't know about... But certainly there's nothing I miss or that I think is going wrong. ;)

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Dups always happen, to everybody. I hope that nobody's afraid of reporting an issue just because it *could* be a dup though...

Thanks. I could have been friendlier around December. I was quite overworked and there was a high number of incoming reports. I *really* appreciated the feedback by two or three people that told me to check my tone and maybe work a bit less. :)

Yeah, for example Karsten working in the background on getting Bugzilla 3.4 in place (current version is ancient and misses a lot of stuff that will make everybody's life easier).

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

/me hoping for more feedback, but maybe Bugzilla is just a too boring topic. :-P

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

I had filed a bug when I recieved my first N900 because it got stuck in a weird reboot cycle but there were hardware issues as well, after filing bug and getting a prompt response after troubleshooting all I could, I realized that the unit was one of the first week production models that were defective and sent it back for a replacement, which I am using flawlessly for the past several months. Due to the quick help and response from Bugzilla I was able to narrow things down and rectify the problem quickly as possible. Great work Bugmasters!

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Is it a preference you can change in bugzilla to show everyone's emails or not?

I've just realised everyone's email address is advertised for spammers everywhere to get hold of when you click show votes....

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Andre, In my use of b.m.o, I too have misfiled bugs, made dups, etc. You have handled it all in a professional manner, and have always been helpful in asking questions, clarifying, etc. I have no negatives to say about your work at all. In fact, quite the opposite, in my experience, you are doing a fantastic job.

My only peeves with b.m.o relate to the actual software. But sounds like Karsten's work on 3.4 will improve that situation.

Although you may not get much praise on a regular basis, your work is transparent, high quality, and highly appreciated. Thank you!

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

See the discussion in http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=46816 (well, "pick the useful parts" maybe, it became a bit heated).

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

So we'll be fine in v3.4, which you say is coming soon? :P

Cool, thanks Andre :)

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

The "soon" was a bit too optimistic in the other thread (things somehow always love to be more complicated than expected), but Karsten is working on it and should finish it by this or next month.

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Hmm. I´m pleased with your current contribution. It might be true that in december-january bugzilla was little too hot place. At least I got pretty long and not so friendly answer from user named timeless. Almost wrote personal email to him, but after checking who this guy is and what he has managed to do with his life I tought that he is right and knows pretty much what he is doing *gulp*, but I would not be suprised if some rather sensitive user would get upset at his tone :D

I pretty much agree with everything what benny1967 just said. You manage to be effective but still friendly.

btw.
I have been constantly reading this bug report:
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8723
And I would be glad if you managed to put up some bug-day in irc where you just concentrate on one type of bug. For example on desktop-widgets running with python and how to spot memory problems. I know that memory problems could take days to show, but somekind of basics about what to look and what scripts to use.

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Timeless does have a tone :)
You get used to him pretty fast. And he has done an immense amount of work for Maemo.
Which is one of the amazing things with Andre, he just is polite, always.

I'm just happy to have Andre around.

One of the things he also does is act as the brigde to the Nokia bugzilla. Something he gets a lot of credit for inside Nokia. I don't think we say it out loud often enough, but a big thank you to our bugmaster!

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

I have nothing but good things to say for all your work in the past couple of years (wow, has it been that long already?) I appreciate it can be quite a difficult and frustrating job sitting in between bug reporters, Nokia engineers and upstream bugtrackers and often drawing fire from all sides, yet you have managed to make working with bugs.maemo.org as smooth as it can be while helping bug reports get the attention they deserve (one simply has to compare bug handling in Diablo vs Fremantle to see that).

All the meta-work you are doing (feature jars, bugdays, maintaining the stock answers etc) is also very useful and appreciated.

If I have to list something "bad", my only real peeve is that whole MOVED resolution business, but that's hardly your fault so it's off-topic here.

So thank you, and keep it up :-)

I can't comment on Kasten, simply because his work isn't visible yet (and parts of it never will be), but I do appreciate all the effort going into the bugzilla upgrade.

Special thanks also to sjgadsby for the weekly bugjars!

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Well I've only filed a few bugs, but would just like to add, that you are doing a excellent job making me feel great ;)

Every time I filed a bug it was looked into and I recieved feedback.
That's what many people expect when they find something wrong, a) to know somebody else can confirm the problem, b) to know the problem is coming through the appropriate channels and c) to know if/when it will be fixed.

Thanks for the hard work.

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Ask and it shall be given to you ;)

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Awesome! Set as my N900 background picture now. :D

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Andre is doing a great job in my opinion. :)

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

I think Andre is heavens gift for Maemo. Very good job! :)

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Well, I don't know if Andre and the guys are paid for this.

Are they?
Or they're just doing it out of pure goodwill for the community?

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

As part of the core maemo.org team Karsten and me get paid for this (indirectly by Nokia).
Bugsquad itself is on voluntarily basis (and a huge help!)

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Thanks for all the flowers!

Now dumping my personal list of thoughts here now that I had in mind when starting this thread:

The bad:
* maemo.org bug 630 (Get developers involved) - hard to change internal company culture from outside - bit of progress but still very far away from where it should be and where I want it to be
* the "Fixed in Fremantle" frustration for Diablo users (though there's not much I could do - Nokia's decisions and I hope they learned something)

The good:
* Bugs get triaged and you get feedback, not the feeling anymore that Bugzilla is abandoned
* Nokia has a useful and valuable feedback channel from real users (bug reports themselves and the weekly internal report I send to Nokia Error Management)
* Bugsquad created (cool people and fun to work with)
* monthly Feature Jar partially based on Stephen's great weekly jars helping Nokia Product Management to prioritize users' wishes

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

I am new member here, but for my understanding bug masters are doing great job. Keeping their tone professional and informative. Especially Andre always makes an entrance in the right moment ;-)
Keep the momentum guys!

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Well, Andre, not having a divisive issue like Mer under your name makes for less interesting feedback, I suppose. ;) As I doubted whether you'd really appreciate "You've been doing a kickass job, dude!" as feedback, I've been thinking about this one for the past few days.

Let me start out by saying, "You've been doing a kickass job, dude!" :) You're in a hard position, one that, I believe, is likely more difficult than any Nokia employee or other Maemo Community member occupies. You're stuck between a rock (Nokia) and a hard place (the community), with both parties using you to do their dirty work and shovel their **** around. Nokia uses you communicate all of their terrible decisions to the masses, the community makes you advocate for all of their unpopular positions to Nokia, and you end up dealing with a lot of unpleasantness on both sides for things you're not responsible for.

As bad as that all is, it doesn't include the hours a day toiling through boring-as-all-get-out, and often useless, bug reports from reporters who are frequently just looking for a support channel or a place to vent their overactive spleens; nor playing the only communication link between the internal and external Bugzillas, copying information both ways—by hand—to make sure the duplicated trackers are in sync to support Nokia's outdated and inefficient tracking policies.

Now this is a bleak picture I've painted and I know you don't see it that way, and I know it has its fair share of position and gratifying work too—you're making people feel like somebody cares about their software issues, you're helping them learn valuable new skills, and you're helping to make Maemo and maemo.org an awesome software platform and an awesome place to be, but I've had glimpses into your world, and I don't think I could ever handle it with as much calm and thoroughness as you do. :)

Enough smoke blowing, on to the productive:

There are a few areas where I'd like to see improvements (though most aren't your fault).

First, 3.4 is taking forever. Somebody needs to get Tero to give Karsten more hours if that needs to happen, and somebody needs to kick Karsten's *** into getting this work onto a public CVS and being open about what's happening.

Second, I'm worried that you're ending up an enabler for Nokia's closed practices. You're making it too easy for them to keep operating as they are. Notice that Nokia has improved very little in their processes over the past couple years, yet the quality and quantity of incoming reports is higher than ever and they're actually getting a lot of useful information out of them (whether they actually look externally or not, thanks to your efforts ;)). With recent MeeGo-related developments, though, it's also likely entirely pointless to worry about this, as so much will be changing in the next 6 months—both for the better and the ill (will Harmattan even have an external bug tracker? :rolleyes:). But it's, perhaps, something to ponder on as we move forward.

Third, engagement with the Bugsquad is unfortunately still low. You're still doing the vast majority of the heavy lifting (which stands to reason, as you're the only one getting paid for it—but still). Looking at ways we could help improve this for MeeGo in the future is something to think about.

Well, that was a long time simmering, hopefully it's somewhat useful. In summary: Thanks, Andre. :)

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Great job, no complaints, keep it up! :p

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(Dropping those parts where I agree anyway, or have nothing to add.)

Yeah, I've been waiting for your feedback on this topic I have to admit. :)

I consider it part of my job to deal with this, however I can really always leave publishing such decisions to Quim if I wanted.
I sometimes leave it to Quim when it comes to complicated non-technical management decisions why Nokia does not want to fix/support something (and I don't know whether it's good or not if I make them public), or when the internal reason for a WONTFIX is so ridiculous that it would make Nokia look really bad in public. (I at least have one such case in mind where I'd love to yell at some people for a ******ed software architecture in a specific Maemo area. Don't ask for details).

The number of people looking for support in Bugzilla (instead of filing "real" software bugs) is really acceptable in my opinion.
Also I can always answer "Please go to the forum at talk.maemo.org for your configuration issue which does not look like a software bug".
People should avoid but of course should not be afraid to accidentially ask in the wrong place and get redirected.

Fixing https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8132 once 3.4 is in place should help a bit.

I'm currently wondering how aggressive I can/should be when it comes to the stupid "copy & paste" part of my job and when it would become counter-productive.

So far when appropriate I internally write "For future reference please directly ask the original reporter in bugs.maemo.org."
I consider changing this to "Is there a reason why you asked here instead of asking directly in bugs.maemo.org?"
I've been considering this and I'm expecting some managers to answer "We've always had our internal bugtracker and it simply is the unique place where things happen" so I'm currently discussing how to "successfully forcing" them to get into direct contact in bugs.maemo.org. Imagine people with an S60 series background that nowadays work on open source, but are not used to the corresponding open source culture with its community and its expectations and involvements.

Things have improved a little bit in the last months (I'm sometimes positively surprised seeing some Nokians commenting in bugs.maemo.org), but way not enough to make me content or to say "Mission accomplished". Way to go.

Up to Karsten to answer this.

I'm also sometimes worried about this.

Nokia's (technical!) processes work well for Nokia.

Nokia might gain advantages by becoming more open (e.g. earlier testing, faster bugfixing, better PR) and Nokia might gain disadvantages by it (for example a public bugtracker that might be noisy and hence waste some time of developers and managers).

I think currently it's still about proofing that the community feedback is (mostly) valuable.
The question is who can decide how to define when this "testing period" is over and how to move on from there, and which concrete and iterative steps can improve the situation ("iterative" as you cannot quickly and completely change a system in a large company that works well for them) and how to proof this (facts & numbers).

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Let me start out by saying, "You've been doing a kickass job, dude!" ;) I would also copy plenty more parts of GeneralAntilles post but this could be seen just as a lack of imagination as opposed to fully agreement...

Having Andre here is one of the best things that could happen to the Maemo project. Honestly, my main concern is not to get him burnt out one day.

You don't need to deal with Nokia's <del>****</del> $STUFFYOUDISAGREE, others like me are paid for that.

Bug #630, it's been a while now that I have been defending (based on experience) that direct involvement of developers in Bugzilla needs to go together with open development. There has actually been quite a lot of progress with open development thanks to MeeGo and I expect to have the fix for Bug #630 in that context. (maybe this is not the answer you wanted to hear but this is the onle I believe in)

sjgadsby and his Bug Jars is also one of the best things that could happen to the Maemo project. There is a before and an after. You can feel the void now without any MeeGo Bug Jars (apparently a void to be filled quite soon - thanks in advance!).

Let me also tell that both the raw Bug Jars and the weekly reports sent by Andre to the Fremantle program at Nokia are being very useful to prioritize bugs for maintenance updates. While the first PR releases still have some weight coming from the internal testing done during the development of the first Maemo 5 release, the more we go forward the more we let the agenda of the maintenance releases be driven by the bugs filed by real users, and your opinions about what matters most.

There is a word that sums up the work Andre and sjgadsby are driving with the bugsquad: Bravo! Yes, a lot more can be done involving volunteers but, then again, this is a deep problem in many community projects, even those successful and fully open. If there are actions from our side that can be done in order to get a more solid Bugsquad team please let us know.

PS: Just discovered that there *is* a MeeGo Bug Jar starting today! http://www.listware.net/201005/meego...ar-201019.html

Re: Reviewing maemo.org bugmasters' work
 

Off Topic: Yes, but does this help us at all in the Harmattan timeframe? :)

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I still don't know, honestly. Finding the place(s) and best way(s) to handle Harmattan related bugs is in the top sector of my ToDo list. Part of defining the relationship between pure MeeGo and Harmattan + upstream vs downstream bug reporting tools. I'll try to find some time and open a new thread at forum.meego.com.

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I think Nokia is profitting a lot from your work, Andre! Your efforts should be rewarded, as your work is exemplary. You act as the perfect advocate for Nokia - correcting many of their shortcomings.
I haven't been a NIT owner for more than a half year, so I'm not that much into Maemo history prior to the N900. I do however sit here with a clear impression, that Maemo wouldn't be where it is at today, if it wasn't for your work (along with qgil and GeneralAntilles).
Nokia definately should look into your work and become inspired to improve themselves regarding direct customer contact (bug reports, developer blogs and public announcements).

So "thank you" for your hard work. It is highly appreciated. A bonus "thank you" to your above mentioned colleagues, too. Others definately deserve thanks as well, but you guys are the ones, that've I've noticed in particular.

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Thanks again. This sentence has been around in mind for some time now. I agree with you, and I'm considering some steps.

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I think the unfortunate thing that it doesn't matter now. Fremantle's basically in low maintenance mode at this point (whatever Nokia may claim), Harmattan is going to either be tracked in MeeGo.com or not publicly at all (depending on the particular product in question), and MeeGo is supposedly going to be tracking only on the MeeGo.com bugzilla.

So, it doesn't really matter much what you do at this point for Maemo. Personally, I'd like to start thinking about how we can bring your expertise to MeeGo moving forward, since they clearly don't have the experience dealing with community people, user and developer alike, that you do (especially users).

Either way, keep on rockin' on with yo bad self. :)