I suppose that real bugs that matters are worth to be resubmitted. So, if some minor bugs are still left and nobody cares - so what? And the ones that are easily "repeatable" and means something to the comunity will be reposted if not by you, then by another one.
Hope you've understood my little bit crapy English =)

At least for bugs in a different code-base, even if it's still present in the new one.

I do not think it is a good idea to close all bugs. When KDE 4.0 is released you want to be able to see whether there are any known issues. However, it would make sense to close all bugs against KDE 3.x applications.

What kind of question is this, "Yes" or "No" as an awnser???

You should more think about a "call for response" message replied to every bug report and waiting at least two weeks until closing the bug
Thus if someone is still interested or experiencing the problem reported, they will have a chance to keep the bugreport alive, INCLUDING the available information about it. This action should reduce the bugreports very much, but still keep important ones.

The 3.5 release will be in corporate use for a long time, ignoring these important users would be a wrong turn, a stable and reliable release is what they base their opinion on kde on...

A Yes or No just doesn't fit to most complex problems, there is a good way between the two extremes

And have a system that automatically deletes bug reports after say 2 months. Every KDE developer and user could spend a month parsing through that database and accomplish nothing. Delete it.

Bugzilla type systems are a managing tool, not a developing tool. Those who would like to manage the project can put up the resources to maintain the database if they want. Otherwise get rid of it.

Derek Kite

I could not make a vote. There are too many factors. Perhaps having a 3 week period where if there is no activity or if someone with rights (aka, the person that opened the bug or is the maintainer of the app or commented on the bug before the three week period) doesn't click "keep this bug" THEN the bug is automatically removed (or backed up somewhere else)? Perhaps we can clear out all kde 2 and below cruft and unmaintained apps cruft? There needs to be backups, so there should be a historical read-only bugzilla set up for those that want to transfer over bugs. Clearing everything out, on the other hand, is far too dangerous. It is an attractive answer with too many negative consequences. Imagine the corporate users depending on kde3 but not having the time to re-file bugs and re-cap all the history of the bug and find all the patches that were sent in, etc. Imagine all the upset users. If we move to a clean bugzilla, great, but I think that there needs to be an easier migration path then just expecting everyone to re-file all the bugs that they can remember.

On a separate note, will this mean we will move to a new version of bugzilla as well?

Instead of closing bugs, is not it easier to just ignore bugs submitted on < 4.0 version of kde ?

A better idea would be to _fix_ all the bugs.

I think communication is the key. Also you should probably keep recent bugs (e.g. in the last year), and bugs with lots of votes/comments.

First the KDE-Project needs a better voting system to know about the greatest bugs and wishes. If you are an attentive KDE-user and vote for a lot of bugs/wishes today, you have no more votes as a beginner. Thats not so good, because you have a few top bugs but then big cloud of middle-voting bugs. My proposal: everybody have 100 votingspoints and with every bug/wish he reports, he will get 10 points extra.

Second the KDE-Project should more view on the votings. KMail-Bug#41514 is open from KDE 3.0 and has more then 150 comments! You have a system to vote, but nobody use that. That is a problem.

Third: my voting is no to your poll, because the bugsystem have a feature to categorize bugs and wishes in KDE-Versions. Please use that. If you think, that you can close a lot of bugs, then contact the authors again. If you close all the bugs from KDE 1.x/2.x a lot of users don't report bugs again. My proposal: Start a offense to close old bugs by contact of the authors. After six weeks (because holidays etc) you can close it, when you get no response.

vicbrother
KDE user

As someone who has posted more than a few bug reports, I'm fine with the closing of the bugs. It will make reporting easier as at the beginning I will know there are no duplicates.

I don't think it is a good idea to just close all existing bugs. KDE 3 bugs do not magically go away when KDE 4 is released, and application maintainers, or others, may still want to release updates. KDE 3 will be around in use for quite a while more. We should not ignore that.
However, I do think it would be valuable to separate the KDE 4 bugs from the KDE 3 bugs. It would be good to be able to easily see what problems there are in KDE 4, and not bother users reporting bugs in KDE 4 with lists full of old bugs on KDE 3. Crossreferencing would be usefull though.

So: I voted No.

*Definitly* not. Bugs in the previous version should NOT just be CLOSED: they have been filed against the KDE3 version and closing them because its successor somehow solved the issue is not quite correct because the problem has not been fixed in the KDE3 code base. My proposal: introduce a new bug state: SOLVED_IN_V4. This way there still is a way to differentiate bugs *really* fixed in the KDE3 from stuff supposedly fixed in v4.
regards.

KDE 3.x will be used for a long time especially in corporate environments. Closing all bugs would be a bump on the head to all KDE 3.x users who filled in a bug report. What about a Bugzilla Cleaning Day for everybody? => remove duplicates, delete invalid bugs (KDE 1.x, 2.x), move requested features to KDE4 (if not already implemented) etc.

They should be closed eventually but not right away after the release. Instead, they should release a final maintenance release that fixes most of the sticky issues a few months after 4.0's release and then close them, around July 2008.

i agree time for a fresh start. there is not enough man power to offer support for older users.

Does this mean all bugs reports and feature requests aren't valuable? Will everybody have to resubmit all of them again? This is ridiculous.

So the developers (if there will be some) that will release updates on KDE3 can see them; For those who have to maintain KDE3 and not move to KDE4 can see what are existing issues as well.

Sorry, but someone thinking that it isn't important anymore to fix a bug just because the development moves on to another version must be blind or just stupid.

It is definitely a risky move, and many people wild oppose it, but it is a step that could bring bug tracking back to order.
As a user, I'm personally afraid of going anywhere near Bugzilla, and it is mainly because of the issue you mentioned, the amount of open bugs is certainly intimidating, specially to someone who is new to the world of software development.

This would not only create an advantage towards the developers who would be able to sort things better, but to the users who can find if their bug would just be a duplicate with more ease. I believe that a high percentage of the bugs is probably outdated for the KDE 3 codebase even.

Also, many people are opposing this because of the KDE 3 bugs listed, KDE 3 will benefit from this as well. If the current bugs are erased, the people who maintain KDE 3 will be able to see the bugs that get reported again more clearly. If the bugs are not posted again, it it most likely that they are either already solved, unimportant, or specific to something that's been updated or outdated and thus the change fixed the issue.

All of KDE 4 has so far been about taking risks. This is a risk that will most likely benefit the community.

Can anyone believe KDE3 will go away when 4 is released. Will all KDE3 users upgrade to 4. Of course not. These people will continue to need support.

I can see this working if it is implemented as an option that the current maintainer of each application can choose. To simply close all bug reports at once seems a little rash to me.

I agree with some of the views at the post and comments at http://braincore.blogspot.com/2007/12/kde-close-bugs.html, especially that you should not give such a black-and-white poll.

IIRC Launchpad has this bot called Janitor which "sweeps" (pun intended) the bug database of bugs older than 6 months with no activity and then sends a warning to the reporter and others concerned. If there is no further activity after a certain date then it closes the bug (though I don't remember with what status -- certainly not FIXED, must create new status field EXPIRED).

I vote no. There are still people using KDE 3 and they would like to see the bugs fixed. Maybe the official KDE devels won't work on it. But others interested can and would benefit from the bug database. The bug database should therefore probably be split. The KDE 4 bug database which concerns the official devels and the KDE archaic bug database which does not concern the official devels. Those who see their bug (a bug they are interested in in any way) inherited by KDE 4 from older KDE versions should ask for it to be marked against KDE 4 also, or report a new bug under the KDE 4 database with a link to the bug against KDE-archaic.

Launchpad Bugs also allows a single bug to affect more than one "package" -- this concept is quite useful. IMHO Launchpad has a lot to teach other bug-databases. If only the entire Launchpad code would be OSS it would be most useful.

I voted no, KDE3 != KDE4. Is someone going to perform regression testing for all open KDE3 bugs in KDE4 before they close them? I doubt it. KDE3 will be around and in use for a long time and closing them when KDE4 is released is a terrible, low quality idea.

Yes, if it will lesson the load on the KDE team so they can focus on KDE4 and make it better faster. Face it, it is getting fazed out soon. And it is currently working good enough to get users through until KDE4 is up to speed.

.. it is not available to a wider audience.

Furthermore, before closing all the reports you should ask the submitters who have done all the work of submitting issues. So do a select submitter-email from the bugdb and ask them! No private developer pussy chit chat..

Open a new web for KDE4 bugs.

I did, two three years ago, a few triages by my self witj Koffice. The constant growth and the HORRIBLE interface of bugs.kde.org have put me off doing new efforts. Like most other contributing in a way or another in FOSS i scratch my own itch. My itch is quite narrow. I find it to hard to narrow down the bugs _I_ want to look at. I want to check ONE app and ONE SINGEL version of the app with and then I want to save this "search" with a sensible name. I know it can be done, but the interface is to messy to do it easy.

Easy: Test each bug whether it still exists in KDE4. If it doesn't, close it. Otherwise leave it!

It would be quite ridiculous against all testers and bug submitters if their bugs would simply be deleted now.

the poll does not work for me, so shortly:

bugs should not be closed. Closing them would show huge disrespect to users who submitted them (and you ignored the vast portion of the reports so far)