Ubuntu bugs with patches on the PTS and the QA Packages Overview

Like the Debian BTS, Launchpad is full of open bugs with patches[1]. They have an ongoing effort called Operation Cleansweep whose goal is to get the number of bugs with patches to zero, by reviewing patches and forwarding them upstream or to Debian.

Since it really makes sense to expose bugs with patches to the Debian maintainers, I’ve modified the Ubuntu box on the Packages Tracking System and the Ubuntu column on the QA Packages Overview (hidden by default for now) to include that information. You can see the result on the dpkg PTS page and the debian-pkg@ packages overview page.

Many thanks to Brian Murray for making this possible on the Launchpad side.


[1] Debian has 55115 open bugs affecting unstable, of which 4011 have a patch. Ubuntu has 76916 open bugs, of which 2207 have a patch. [Insert here disclaimer that this is not at all a judgement of value on the abilities of any distribution at triaging bugs, or at generating patches]
Relevant UDD queries:

select count(*) from bugs
where affects_unstable and status = 'pending'
and id in (select id from bugs_tags where tag ='patch');

select count(*) from bugs
where affects_unstable and status = 'pending';

select count(distinct bugs.bug)
from ubuntu_bugs_tasks tasks,ubuntu_bugs bugs
where tasks.bug = bugs.bug
and distro in ('', 'Ubuntu')
and status not in ('Invalid', 'Fix Released', 'Won''t Fix')
and bugs.patches is true;

select count(distinct bugs.bug)
from ubuntu_bugs_tasks tasks,ubuntu_bugs bugs
where tasks.bug = bugs.bug
and distro in ('', 'Ubuntu')
and status not in ('Invalid', 'Fix Released', 'Won''t Fix');

11 thoughts on “Ubuntu bugs with patches on the PTS and the QA Packages Overview

  1. Thanks for setting this up. You might also want to exclude the “Opinion” status in your status parameters which is a new closed status in Launchpad.

  2. Interesting that we now have Ubuntu bugs with patches explicitly listed but not Debian bugs with patches. ;) Thanks for that addition, it will surely help (even though there aren’t that many Ubuntu patches in my own DDPO that I was able to find)

    On a different side note, taking just the numbers and forming out of that a statement like “Ubuntu sucks less than Debian at that” is uncalled for and not very helpful. It totally ignores different workflows on both sides, different possibilities to represent the patch state or how long such bugs with patches are sitting there without a concensus or move. Claiming that one sucks without deeper inspect on the numbers is just demotivating and counter-productive.

  3. @Gerfried: come on! I know very well that those statistics hide the complexity and the history of both projects, and don’t really represent anything extremely relevant. I think that we are past the time where every post mentioning Debian and Ubuntu together needs to be written with the “omg that sentence could be misunderstood if you really twist your mind”-checker.

  4. Actually I don’t have to twist my mind at all to read “Ubuntu sucks less than Debian at that” into “Ubuntu sucks less than Debian at that”. Changing it to “Ubuntu is better than Debian at that” does change the wording only minor but doesn’t address the core point I tried to raise: It’s a comparison on sheer quantity instead of quality or anything else, which is IMHO a bad way. It encourages diversity more than collaboration, and it especially encourages more to work on easy parts instead of things that might be more trickier and thus need more investment to get them done. Tackling things in a number-chasing way isn’t what improves the system.

  5. Even if you leave different approaches aside, the comparison could also mean something else then what you imply by your assertion. What you assert is:
    Ubuntu is better at applying patches that exist for bugs.
    What you could also read into the numbers is:
    Ubuntu is worse at finding patches for bugs.
    See?

  6. @Sven: I could do a 1-hour talk on the interpretation of those numbers. It would just be completely boring. I’ve now removed the small statement that compared both distros. I hope everyone is happy now. If someone complains again, I will probably just remove the whole footnote and all the comments of this post.

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