277080 - Ability to have multiple products with the same name in different Classifications

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Bugzilla :: Administration, task, P5)

Description

[Albert Ting]

My company recently expanded, with many sites worldwide.  So it would be great
if Bugzilla had a "location" field.  And the "initialowner" and "cclist" (bug
#38922) would get updated based on the location.

For example, there would be one "facilities" product, but each site would have a
different owner and cc-list.

Comment 1

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Reassigning bugs that I'm not actively working on to the default component owner
in order to try to make some sanity out of my personal buglist.  This doesn't
mean the bug isn't being dealt with, just that I'm not the one doing it.  If you
are dealing with this bug, please assign it to yourself.

Comment 2

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

Could you explain the feature a bit more? Seems like something that could
possibly be handled by components, or perhaps a type of custom field, but I'm
not certain.

Comment 3

[Albert Ting]

(In reply to comment #2)
If I didn't have any components, then yes, I could use components to reflect the
location.  But suppose I had an IT product:
  
    IT -> user accounts
    IT -> unix hardware
    IT -> windows hardware
    IT -> windows applications
    etc.

I'd like each of these to be location dependent, such that the default
owner/default-cc-list would change per location.  I could make "IT" be a
classification but one could also envision a multi-site product development,
something my company is doing.  Moreover, it would seem location ought to be
defined at a higher level, not at the lowest level.  

In any case, I wouldn't mind making this a custom field, provided the
default-owner/cclist worked with the custom field.

Comment 4

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

OK. How would you envison the GUI and architecture for such a feature? (I don't
fully understand how it differs from Classifications at this point.)

Comment 5

[Albert Ting]

(In reply to comment #4)
> OK. How would you envison the GUI and architecture for such a feature? (I don't
> fully understand how it differs from Classifications at this point.)

Let me first respond to your second sentence.  I currently have a
classification.  For sake of discussion, let's call it "IT".  Just today, I was
asked to break it up into "IT-US" and "IT-India".  They want both to have the
same product names, same components, but different default owners (and
default-cc).  But since Bugzilla doesn't support multiple products with the same
name, I'm stuck.

So how should it be done?  I don't have an easy answer.  Some options:

    - Flatten the component level to include both locations (.ie 
      US-email-problems and India-email-problems).  But this doesn't scale well.
    - Have a separate "location" field tied to the product would work, similar 
      to milestone/versions.  The initialowner/defaultcc would need to be indexed
      based on both the component and location.  But you may not want a location
      for all products.
    - Use subcomponents (bug #173133).  But only if the initialowner/defaultcc
      was tied to the subcomponent level. 
    - Allow duplicate product names.  Or rather, unique names only within
      a classification.  But this a fundamental change in the schema.

I actually considered tackling the last one, for I've seen a number of
situations (not location related) where I had to find a workaround.  But that's
a lot of work.  Even if I had time to pursue it, would the bugzilla team accept
the idea?

Comment 6

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I actually considered tackling the last one, for I've seen a number of
> situations (not location related) where I had to find a workaround.  But that's
> a lot of work.  Even if I had time to pursue it, would the bugzilla team accept
> the idea?

  Well, it really depends on if there's interest in having non-unique product
names. I think it would make sense, but it would also make it impossible to turn
off Classifications. That might be OK, actually -- we could just not show them
if we have only one Classification, just like we do now for products.

  In fact, I think that's what we ought to do anyway. I would accept that.
Having "useclassifications" turned off hides a lot of bugs nowadays, anyway.

  Note that the eventual solution to this *class* of problems is bug 280122, but
that's pretty far down the road at this point.

Comment 7

[Chris Raplee]

Strong interest here. I'd like Classification:Product:Component to map to 
CustomerName:ProductName:ComponentName -- we've got many customers with the 
same sets of products. 

Comment 8

[Albert Ting]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Strong interest here. I'd like Classification:Product:Component to map to 
> CustomerName:ProductName:ComponentName -- we've got many customers with the 
> same sets of products. 

I'd like to clarify that the intent is to have each classification point to a
different set of product ids, but still allow the same set of product names.

That's different from having multiple classifications point to the same product. 

Granted, both could possibly co-exists but there's enough challenges just to get
the first one working. 

Comment 9

[Chris Raplee]

Regarding comment #8
>I'd like to clarify that the intent is to have each classification point to a
>different set of product ids, but still allow the same set of product names.

>That's different from having multiple classifications point to the same >product. 

I think we're talking about the same thing. I need seperate instances of the
same product name. Example: the Customer1 classification should be able to
contain OurProduct. Then the Customer2 classification could have a seperate
OurProduct. Customer1 should not be able to see Customer2 bugs.  

The same product being a member of multiple classifications would be of little
utility for me. 

Comment 10

[Frédéric Buclin]

The trunk is now frozen to prepare Bugzilla 2.22. Enhancement bugs are retargetted to 2.24.

Comment 11

[Kevin Benton]

It seems to me that we can only benefit from doing this right.  For classification users, it seems reasonable to me that there are times when we really ought to enforce the full hierarchy of classification / product / component.  Since we allow multiple components to have the same name, it confuses admins and users alike when we say we can have multiple components named identically, but we can't have multiple products named Widget under separate classifications.

Comment 12

[Olav Vitters]

FYI, my users see products as unique and would be confused if a software product existed in multiple classifications. They are rather asking for multiple classifications for one product.

Comment 13

[Kevin Benton]

(In reply to comment #12)
> FYI, my users see products as unique and would be confused if a software
> product existed in multiple classifications. They are rather asking for
> multiple classifications for one product.

Not a problem.  I'm simply saying, please don't prevent me from creating two products with the same name under different classifications.  If you choose not to allow it yourself, that's your perogative.  :)

Comment 14

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

We have made too many external API guarantees of Product names being unique to ever implement this. Keeping it open for now so people don't file dupes.

Comment 15

[Frédéric Buclin]

This means WONTFIX. We will track dupes if there are some.