Re: No Issue Tracker - Say it Ain't So!

On 09/28/2015 03:40 PM, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Tom Lane wrote:
> 
>> Now, running gitlab on community-owned hardware would potentially be an
>> option, if we find gitlab attractive from a functionality standpoint.
>> The question I'd have about that is whether it has a real development
>> community, or is open-source in name only.  If github did go belly up,
>> would we find ourselves maintaining the gitlab code all by ourselves?
>> That might not be the end of the world, but it wouldn't be a good use
>> of community time either.
>>
>> Fundamentally, we're playing the long game here.  We do not want to make
>> a choice of tools that we're going to regret ten years from now.
> 
> We already made a similar choice some years ago when we started
> depending on the then-recently open sourced SourceForge code for
> pgFoundry.  That didn't turn out all that well in the long run.

No kidding.

Anyway, we don't have to have this discussion because the Github Issue
model is insufficiently sophisticated for our usage:

* crappy-to-nonexistant email integration
* flat "tag" categorization system
* no concept of releases
* too-simple two-level permissions model
* poor search tools
* no ability to add new fields to extend
* dependency on markup-based cross-referencing
* inability to flag issues for specific people's attention
* no workflow other than open/closed
* no support for attachments

... in short, Github issues is great for a small 6-dev project, but is
utterly inadequate for a project the size of PostgreSQL.

Now, if those issues were common to other tools we could find, then
maybe it would be worth fixing them.  But we already have access to
other tools which are more mature, so why would we bother?

The infra team seems to be good with debbugs, and several committers
seem to like it, why not go with it?

-- 
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com