Reporting GCC bugs

Reporting GCC bugs

[Torbjorn Granlund]

I tried to report two gcc bugs today.  I read the
http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs/ page, and then clicked on the link for making
the actual report.  I was then--without motivation--requested to create
an "account".

I am not happy maintaining lots of "accounts" for this and that.  Since
there is no motivation whatsoever why an account would be needed, I will
not create one, and will not send in any gcc bug reports for the time
being.

-- 
Torbjörn

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[Ian Lance Taylor]

On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 7:53 AM, Torbjorn Granlund <tg@gmplib.org> wrote:
> I tried to report two gcc bugs today.  I read the
> http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs/ page, and then clicked on the link for making
> the actual report.  I was then--without motivation--requested to create
> an "account".
>
> I am not happy maintaining lots of "accounts" for this and that.  Since
> there is no motivation whatsoever why an account would be needed, I will
> not create one, and will not send in any gcc bug reports for the time
> being.

I'm certainly sorry to hear that you will not be reporting bugs for
GCC.  However, we have had spam in bugzilla in the past, and it's a
real pain to deal with.  It's even led us to being added to e-mail
blacklists, and cleaning that up was hours of my life that I will
never get back.  Requiring an account with a valid e-mail address is
an unfortunate necessity on the current Internet, at least for a
popular and well-known site like gcc.gnu.org.  I wish it were not so,
but the fault is not with the GCC project; it is with the spammers.

Ian

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[Torbjorn Granlund]

Ian Lance Taylor <iant@google.com> writes:

  I'm certainly sorry to hear that you will not be reporting bugs for
  GCC.  However, we have had spam in bugzilla in the past, and it's a
  real pain to deal with.  It's even led us to being added to e-mail
  blacklists, and cleaning that up was hours of my life that I will
  never get back.  Requiring an account with a valid e-mail address is
  an unfortunate necessity on the current Internet, at least for a
  popular and well-known site like gcc.gnu.org.  I wish it were not so,
  but the fault is not with the GCC project; it is with the spammers.

Thanks for the reply!

I had no idea this was due to spamming problems.

I think the explanation you provide really should be on the page I
indicated.

The GMP lists also receive spam attempts, a handful per day.  I deal
with it manually, and with whitelists for known non-spammers.  The
disadvantage is that it takes perhaps a minute of the moderators' time
each day, and that people see delays in reaching the lists.

The GCC way surely deflects spam, but also surely deflects lots of bug
reports, in particular when no valid explanation for the need of
registration is given.

-- 
Torbjörn

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[Paul Smith]

On Tue, 2012-10-09 at 18:40 +0200, Torbjorn Granlund wrote:
> The GMP lists also receive spam attempts, a handful per day.  I deal
> with it manually, and with whitelists for known non-spammers.  The
> disadvantage is that it takes perhaps a minute of the moderators' time
> each day, and that people see delays in reaching the lists.

A mailing list is not the same as a bug tracker.  Many mailing lists out
there require subscription before posting to reduce spam.  Most GNU
mailing lists, including I believe gcc-help, do NOT require subscription
before posting.  We have a very nice system for handling spam to our
mailing lists and the GNU developers are quite willing to deal with the
remaining moderation duties.

On the other hand having extraneous bugs filed by spammers and having
spam comments added to existing bugs in Bugzilla is a far larger PITA to
handle than moderating a mailing list.  Bugzilla has no facility for
"moderating" bug comments or new bugs so that they can be rejected
before being accepted if they're deemed to be spam.  Instead the cleanup
has to come afterwards, and Bugzilla (like most bug trackers) does not
have great facilities for deleting bug reports and comments once created
(after all normally you wouldn't want to do this).

Requiring an account for bug reports alleviates this problem.  It also
helps with quality since it ensures we can reach you if we need more
information, and that you are notified of activity on the bug and can
respond.


Cheers!

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[Ian Lance Taylor]

On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 9:40 AM, Torbjorn Granlund <tg@gmplib.org> wrote:
> Ian Lance Taylor <iant@google.com> writes:
>
>   I'm certainly sorry to hear that you will not be reporting bugs for
>   GCC.  However, we have had spam in bugzilla in the past, and it's a
>   real pain to deal with.  It's even led us to being added to e-mail
>   blacklists, and cleaning that up was hours of my life that I will
>   never get back.  Requiring an account with a valid e-mail address is
>   an unfortunate necessity on the current Internet, at least for a
>   popular and well-known site like gcc.gnu.org.  I wish it were not so,
>   but the fault is not with the GCC project; it is with the spammers.
>
> Thanks for the reply!
>
> I had no idea this was due to spamming problems.
>
> I think the explanation you provide really should be on the page I
> indicated.

I added a note to http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs/ .

Ian

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Ian Lance Taylor <iant@google.com> skribis:

> Requiring an account with a valid e-mail address is
> an unfortunate necessity on the current Internet,

Several GNU projects have been using Debbugs at <http://bugs.gnu.org/>
for some time.  It doesn’t require subscription.

I’ve never seen any spam there, perhaps thanks to Savannah’s shared spam
filters.  More importantly, it’s very convenient for most
hackers–there’s even a pleasant Emacs mode to browse bugs.

Ludo’.

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[Ian Lance Taylor]

On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 7:58 AM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> Ian Lance Taylor <iant@google.com> skribis:
>
>> Requiring an account with a valid e-mail address is
>> an unfortunate necessity on the current Internet,
>
> Several GNU projects have been using Debbugs at <http://bugs.gnu.org/>
> for some time.  It doesn’t require subscription.
>
> I’ve never seen any spam there, perhaps thanks to Savannah’s shared spam
> filters.  More importantly, it’s very convenient for most
> hackers–there’s even a pleasant Emacs mode to browse bugs.

At first glance, it looks to be a fairly different kind of system: it
looks like you can only report bugs by e-mail.  GCC used to use a
system like that: GNATS.  Bugzilla is working quite a bit better for
GCC.

Not that I'm opposed to changing if people really think it would be better.

Ian

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[Ángel González]

On 31/10/12 23:06, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
> Indeed.  If bugzilla supported OpenID I think using it would be good,
> but see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=294608
It is WONTFIXed for bugzilla core. There is a bugzilla extension to
support OpenID.
See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=294608#c39 and the repo at
https://github.com/jalcine/bugzilla-openid

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[NightStrike]

On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 4:30 AM, Ángel González <keisial@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 31/10/12 23:06, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
>> Indeed.  If bugzilla supported OpenID I think using it would be good,
>> but see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=294608
> It is WONTFIXed for bugzilla core. There is a bugzilla extension to
> support OpenID.
> See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=294608#c39 and the repo at
> https://github.com/jalcine/bugzilla-openid
>
>

Can the gcc bugzilla use the extension?

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[Ian Lance Taylor]

lpsolit: Please see below.  How hard would it be to add this extension
to the gcc.gnu.org and sourceware.org bugzilla?  Thanks.

Ian

On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 9:33 PM, NightStrike <nightstrike@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 4:30 AM, Ángel González <keisial@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 31/10/12 23:06, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
>>> Indeed.  If bugzilla supported OpenID I think using it would be good,
>>> but see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=294608
>> It is WONTFIXed for bugzilla core. There is a bugzilla extension to
>> support OpenID.
>> See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=294608#c39 and the repo at
>> https://github.com/jalcine/bugzilla-openid
>>
>>
>
> Can the gcc bugzilla use the extension?

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[Frédéric Buclin]

Le 30. 11. 12 06:37, Ian Lance Taylor a écrit :
> lpsolit: Please see below.  How hard would it be to add this extension
> to the gcc.gnu.org and sourceware.org bugzilla?  Thanks.

No idea. I never tested this extension nor tried to install it, and so I
have no idea 1) how many dependencies must be installed to make it work,
2) how secure the extension is (I don't think it got any security
audit), and 3) for which version of Bugzilla it has been written. About
this last point, https://github.com/jalcine/bugzilla-openid/issues/1
says that the extension has only been tested with Bugzilla 4.2.4 seven
months ago. But 4.2.4 has been released this month only, so I don't know
which version she was talking about exactly. Maybe 4.2.1.


LpSolit

Re: Reporting GCC bugs

[NightStrike]

On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 7:23 AM, Frédéric Buclin <LpSolit@netscape.net> wrote:
> Le 30. 11. 12 06:37, Ian Lance Taylor a écrit :
>> lpsolit: Please see below.  How hard would it be to add this extension
>> to the gcc.gnu.org and sourceware.org bugzilla?  Thanks.
>
> No idea. I never tested this extension nor tried to install it, and so I
> have no idea 1) how many dependencies must be installed to make it work,
> 2) how secure the extension is (I don't think it got any security
> audit), and 3) for which version of Bugzilla it has been written. About
> this last point, https://github.com/jalcine/bugzilla-openid/issues/1
> says that the extension has only been tested with Bugzilla 4.2.4 seven
> months ago. But 4.2.4 has been released this month only, so I don't know
> which version she was talking about exactly. Maybe 4.2.1.
>
>
> LpSolit
>

For 1, can you try it and see?