Collabora Productivity from AppStore - bug reports

Board Discuss
#1

Hello to all,

Might I suggest that a discussion be had, either by the Board, or the ESC, and a decision be made of public record, as to where bugs relating to Collabora Productivity are to be reported ?

I have reported a number of bugs against Collabora Productivity in the LibreOffice bugzilla over several years (basically since the product was first released via the AppStore).

I see now that my reports are being closed as NOTOURBUG, and being told that I should report them to Collabora.

Having been consistently told to report them on the LO BZ over these many years, this approach has come both as somewhat of a surprise, and a disappointment.

Questions:

  1. when was this change decided ? I see nothing of public record ?

  2. if the decision wass made to shift responsibility for these back to Collabora, would someone from that entity please indicate where the bugs should now be reported, or whether there is some mechanism in place to automatically transfer the bugs to a corresponding Collabora instance like we did when we moved from Apache BZ ?

I have the distinct and unpleasant impression that the current tensions within the Board have led to an undocumented decision to purge all traces of Collabora bugs from the LO BZ instance without regard for the people who have actually tried to help improve the product by reporting those bugs.

I would have appreciated there being some kind of public decision making process in this regard, with a means for currently reported bugs to be automatically transferred.

Closing them as NOTOURBUG without any due process just smacks of petty revenge actions, and does not bode well for the future wellbeing of the project IMO.

Thanks,

Alex

#2

Hi Alex,

Alexander Thurgood píše v Út 14. 06. 2022 v 09:52 +0200:

I have reported a number of bugs against Collabora Productivity in
the LibreOffice bugzilla over several years (basically since the
product was first released via the AppStore).

I see now that my reports are being closed as NOTOURBUG, and being
told that I should report them to Collabora.

I have no idea what is going on, can you please point me to some bugs
where this is happening?

Thank you in advance!

All the best,
Kendy

#3

Hi Alex,

Hello to all,

Might I suggest that a discussion be had, either by the Board, or the ESC, and a decision be made of public record, as to where bugs relating to Collabora Productivity are to be reported ?

Agreed on the need to have a discussion on that.

I have reported a number of bugs against Collabora Productivity in the LibreOffice bugzilla _*over several years*_ (basically since the product was first released via the AppStore).

and thanks a lot for your continuous contributions to the project since so many years :slight_smile:

I see now that my reports are being closed as NOTOURBUG, and being told that I should report them to Collabora.

Having been consistently told to report them on the LO BZ over these many years, this approach has come both as somewhat of a surprise, and a disappointment.

Questions:

1) when was this change decided ? I see nothing of public record ?

From what I know, nothing has been decided yet, as you said this is something that we should discuss

2) if the decision wass made to shift responsibility for these back to Collabora, would someone from that entity please indicate where the bugs should now be reported, or whether there is some mechanism in place to automatically transfer the bugs to a corresponding Collabora instance like we did when we moved from Apache BZ ?

We have to give time to time (F. Mitterrand for those who are not French :wink:

I have the distinct and unpleasant impression that the current tensions within the Board have led to an undocumented decision to purge all traces of Collabora bugs from the LO BZ instance without regard for the people who have actually tried to help improve the product by reporting those bugs.

Your impression is not the right one. There are no decisions yet on this process. This leads to the unfortunate situation where both the member closing your bugs and you are right or wrong.

I would have appreciated there being some kind of public decision making process in this regard, with a means for currently reported bugs to be automatically transferred.

For sure there will be and you pointed a very valuable lack of process.

Closing them as NOTOURBUG without any due process just smacks of petty revenge actions, and does not bode well for the future wellbeing of the project IMO.

In the community there are different understandings and different behaviors. Fortunately we are able to follow-up on almost all of them. But I'm sure the closing of your bugs have nothing to do with a hidden agenda or something like that. Once the settings of the app stores will be done, there will be a lot to decide and discuss and I'm sure (and will work for :slight_smile: it will happen in a sane way.

On your underlying point about the tensions in the board, there are and we are all well aware of them, as is the board. Their has been a two, almost three years break in relations because of the pandemic. This is not easy to work remotely, but it has been even worse for us distributed around the globe. So bear with all of them, with all of us and please, continue to share all your concerns, this is how we will manage to solve problems and grow as a project.

Cheers
Sophie

#4

Hi Jan,

For example :

tdf#147337

The others (there were at least 2 other instances, for example tdf#147130), all seem to have had similar comments deleted in the interim.

Alex

#5

Hi Sophie,

Thanks.

I have no particular personal illusion that Collabora will fix any of the bugs I've reported against that product, especially if its AppStore offering is to be replaced by the TDF one (or perhaps they are going to compete with each other, I'm not entirely sure ?), so in the end, my objections may be moot.

I look forward to following the discussion on this point in due course :slight_smile:

For the record, as an example of one of the bug reports which does not yet appear to have had the corresponding comments removed: tdf#147337

Quote:

"Please: Collabora bugs should be reported to a Collabora bug tracker. The Foundation’s resources should not be abused to report issues in commercial derivates."

Being accused of abusing TDF resources after having offered my time since the very beginning of the LO project, and before with SO/OOo/AOO, is not the way to retain volunteers like myself, quite the contrary.

In fact, had I been of a less phlegmatic disposition, I would have told you all where to go, in no uncertain terms.

Alex

#6

It is sad how you’re willing to misinterpret and overblow it, Alex.

Collabora Office is a downstream (i.e. derived) project of LibreOffice, and although it is based on the same codebase, it may have its own bugs.

It is not fair for unpaid, volunteer triagers to spend time triaging their software’s bugs in a bug tracking system pertaining to a different project, that is all. The NOTOURBUG status is meant to indicate that the bug simply needs to be moved to a more appropriate instance, as we do with e.g. snapcraft-related issues, which I triage on Launchpad.net. NOTOUTBUG does not mean that your bug is invalid.

I am sorry because I am terse in my non-native languages, but really, there is no conspiracy behind it. I translate Collabora’s software for free, but as you may note, they host their Weblate platform independently from TDF’s – their Jenkins is similarly separately hosted; their online help site is, too. For GOOD REASON.

Adolfo

#7

Commented on the ticket. The issue (if it's a problem at all) does not depend on the packaging/distribution and is clearly not NOTOURBUG.

#8

It is neither a question of overblowing or "paranoia", (thanks for the gratuitous comment by the way, in tdf#147130), but I raised the issue as to where bugs for Collabora should be reported when it was first released via the AppStore and was told, multiple times, and no less by Michael Meeks himself, to report them in the LO BZ.

Seemingly, and without any other form of policy discussion, that has now changed.

Where is the due process in that decision ?

This is the problem I'm pointing out.

Secondarily, accusing people of abusing TDF resources in bug reports (whether they take it personally, or whether it is directed more generally at Collabora) doesn't help the situation IMHO.

Alex

#9

Hi *,

if possible, I would prefer if the discussion on what is, and is not,
a valid bug report on TDF's bugzilla would happen in the QA project
first and foremost.

I do see valid points on Alex' side (who spent a lot of time reporting
bugs), and also from Adolfo (who is right, that e.g. downstream Linux
distro bugs where always encouraged to be reported in distro
bugtrackers - because many times, it was e.g. a Gentoo quirk that
triggered a problem).

In any case, trying to be considerate to each other and understanding
the frustrations of the other side, would be my general wish,
all-over.

There is possibly a more general question behind this (along the
'using foundation resources' issue), which perhaps the board can form
an opinion on. Then it would be on-topic here.

Cheers, Thorsten

#10

Hi Alex, Adolfo, all,

Thank you for the pointers to the bugreports!

More inline:

Alexander Thurgood píše v St 15. 06. 2022 v 10:26 +0200:

It is neither a question of overblowing or "paranoia", (thanks for
the
gratuitous comment by the way, in tdf#147130), but I raised the issue
as
to where bugs for Collabora should be reported when it was first
released via the AppStore and was told, multiple times, and no less
by
Michael Meeks himself, to report them in the LO BZ.

Regardless of my hat & the issue at hand, I'd support using the
LibreOffice bugzilla even for the downstream reports, because
ultimately, the code will end up in the LibreOffice repository either
way.

The reason is that we (TDF hat) would like to have all the patches up-
streamed, even the packaging related ones (under the distro-
config/...). Piling the down-stream patches in their own bug reporting
systems will only lead to problems long-term.

To avoid the feel that the bugzilla is misused, I think it might be
useful to create a categories for such bugs (where we don't have them
yet) - so that the volunteers can decide if they want to spend their
time on triaging such bug reports or not.

But ultimately - the categorization is up to the QA team to decide.
Xisco - what is your take please?

Seemingly, and without any other form of policy discussion, that has
now
changed.

Where is the due process in that decision ?

In general, when it seems that an existing code-related policy does not
fit, the best way is to bring it to the ESC so that the pro's and con's
can be properly discussed from the technical point of view. In case
you think a decision is needed, it would be great to have you both
joining the meeting on Thursday, so that we can talk this through.

Either way - thank you so much Alex and Adolfo for your contributions,
much appreciate that! & hope this is all just a misunderstanding.

All the best,
Kendy

Impressum (Legal Info) | Datenschutzerklärung (Privacy Policy)   Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.