Trac
Trac is an online system for tracking software bugs and organizing software development. OLPC uses an instance of trac, located at dev.laptop.org, to coordinate all its official software development. Bugs, features, and other work items are entered into trac as trac tickets. This assigns the work a unique reference number, which can be used to track progress using the trac system. (See also: reporting bugs)
Trac Usage Guidelines
Blockers
The release team may tag a ticket as 'blocks:8.2.0' to indicate that it blocks the 8.2.0 release. Such tickets will be understood to be part of our release criteria. If you think that a ticket should be so marked, see section 5 below.
blocks?:8.2.0 -- proposed release blocker
blocks:8.2.0 -- set by the release team to mark an accepted release blocker
blocks-:8.2.0 -- set by the release team to mark a rejected release blocker
For 8.2.0, these bugs can be found in the 8.2.0 blockers report.
Proposed blockers can be reviewed in the proposed 8.2.0 blockers report.
Polish
In most releases, there are bugs which are easy to fix and which users would greatly appreciate but which are not severe enough to block the release.
polish:8.2.0 -- A bug worth fixing if you can't fix a blocker.
For 8.2.0, these bugs can be found in the 8.2.0 polish report.
Milestone Field
People should indicate the release they _wish_ that changes would land in via the Milestone field.
Slippage
People should indicate their confidence that the changes _will_ land by tagging tickets with strings like:
8.2.0:+ -- means that the change is "within reach" or, preferably, has been included in a dist-olpc3-updates series build.
8.2.0:? -- the change is "in danger of missing the boat".
8.2.0:- -- the change is unlikely to be ready for release
Please be conservative in tagging things <rel>:+
Simple Test Results
When it's unambiguous, people should attach test results to tickets with tags like:
joyride-2027:- -- the issue persists in joyride-2027
joyride-2029:+ -- the issue was not reproducible in joyride-2027
If appropriate, please also describe the test procedure that was executed to generate the result.
Workflow Data
We have added a 'Needs Action' field to Trac with several states for common actions (and various kinds of ignorance of what action is needed.) Please use it. Let us know if we need to change the set of actions.
More information is available at Trac ticket workflow for the present ticket workflows.
Priority
As the submitter of a ticket you can select a Priority if you like, but we will probably change it.
Priority is to be maintained by component owners, with input from others.
Blocker
Blocker as a priority means that shipment of a milestone, or release of a component, is to be delayed until an acceptable workaround or solution is found.
It doesn't mean the ticket blocks another ticket; we maintain that knowledge in the Blocking or Blocked-By fields.
older suggestions not included in the above
Gregorio 10:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
From Michael's notes on recent meeting: http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2008-June/015749.html
Please comment on that thread. Once we are agreed we can update this page and link them from Trac per Bert's suggestion.
In yesterday's software status meeting, we formulated some conventions for using Trac for the next few months. They are:
2. Greg will record customer preference data according to whatever means he sees fit and will inform us of these data in regular meetings.
3. Kim wants a way to keep track of 'critical' bugs. Michael defined 'critical bugs' as those bugs which receive the most careful oversight by the release team. Shortly, the release team will invent a convention for identifying such bugs which permits their inclusion in reports. These reports will be listed on the frontpage of Trac.
4. People should indicate the release they _wish_ that changes would land in via the Milestone field.
6. When it's unambiguous, people should attach test results to tickets with tags like:
joyride-2027:- -- the issue persists in joyride-2027 joyride-2029:+ -- the issue was not reproducible in joyride-2027
If appropriate, please also describe the test procedure that was executed to generate the result.
Please comment freely.
Regards,
Michael
Trac ticket wiki markup
The OLPC wiki is configured to allow automatic linking to trac tickets using special markup. For example, this code:
<trac>1</trac>
renders as the a link to the page for trac ticket item number 1:
- <trac>1</trac>
There is also Template:Ticket and Template:Trac, not recommended; {{ticket|42}} renders as #42.