[DECISION] Approve USD$10,800 for performing the upstream Bugzilla 6.0 release

@ilmari : Can you perhaps open a new thread and write a few more words - or provide links - about the Bugzilla 6 situation, as of this year?

I’m seeing an announcement of a preview release last September, but no news since then, and a daunting blocker list.

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So, unfortunately, there have been more delays on the contractor’s end. In result, given the new procurement policy we are adapting, the contractor will have to pay some of the outstanding amount as contractual fine for late delivery.

The contractor and us are on good terms, they understand why we needed to do so, and admitted the delays on their end - no bad feelings.

There is also a section in the upcoming annual report of the contractor, thanking us for our support of the project.

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I can’t imagine any world in which TDF choosing to make a gift of support to another open source community should result in a contributor to that community being contractually bound to make a donation to TDF, so maybe that part of the policy needs changing.

The situation is rather that we had a contract for the delivery of services and support with clear deliverables and deadlines, and these were not met, so a contractual fine applies.

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I have to sort-of push back against your position on this one (although without seeing the actual contract - which should of course be disclosed - it’s difficult to form a strong opinion).

We could have decided to support the work on Bugzilla 6.0 with no strings attached. But - we (= TDF) decided not to do that. This was not a preposterous decision: Work on that project has been delayed for a very long time and it was not clear, I assume, that the infusion of money would actually result in completion of the work; so the BoD (I’m assuming), decided to offer a contract with a hedging against the work not being done. Again - we could have taken a different decision, but this is within reason.

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A small update: we are waiting for a quote on finishing this from another contractor who was involved in this work.

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Small update pt. 2: we are finalising the draft for the new contract.

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Thanks for the update.

And, for the record, happy to see this: a project with sufficient funds supporting one we (and others) use that struggles a bit.

Thanks a lot to @ilmari for working on this! The developer situation around BugZilla is much more demanding than I had assumed, in the sense that very few developers seem available, so it took a while to come up with a plan B.

We have indeed someone willing to work on it, and have a contract draft. Should there be no blockers, we will hopefully have some good news soon! Thanks again to Ilmari for making that happen!

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Just out of interest, are TDF’s new mandatory contract terms affecting the situation at all?

No. Even without getting to the contractual terms, the amount of potential developers seems very, very low.

Quick update before the weekend: The final contract draft is now in review, so I hope we can announce progress soon.

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We need to update some bits and pieces of the contract. As you can imagine, currently everyone is quite busy, but we’ll get to this shortly. In particular in light of issues from the past, TDF is eager to have proper contracts in place, which is a bit more challenging when contractual partners can be worldwide. Additionally, as you have seen, Bugzilla has its own set of challenges, and we want to ensure things work smoothly this time.

We’re not sharing the contract here because we’re still in negotiations with the service provider about the details, but the scope is as outlined above already.

In particular in light of issues from the past, TDF is eager to have proper contracts in place

Issues from the past regarding Bugzilla development support?

Also, are we still negotiating with the same individual from January?

We had a contract in the past with a different service provider. After several prolongations, that contract was eventually ended without the final deliverable, only parts were done (and paid).

It seems extraordinarily complicated to find a developer for Bugzilla who is also available for contracted work, which is quite concerning.

We had an initial contact with the potential new contractor probably in January, but the first time we had a call about details was early March, and the first contract draft was provided to us about two months ago in mid-March.

Well, let’s hope they don’t lose interest.

I am even more worried about the sustainability. If there is one person who can realistically work on a tool we rely on, that is worrying. TDF was willing to spend money, but it was not easy to find someone who was willing to deliver…

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I suppose it’s easier for us (and other BZ users) to coast without active maintenace using the now-venerable Bugzilla 5.x versions, rather than a new version a lot of changes, which will have some teething issues.

The scope of the contract is the Bugzilla 6.0 release actually…

The contract has been approved today. The expected delivery time is tentatively October 31, but we’re waiting for final clarification on that.