304034 - Bugzilla Helper should redirect Linux users to the bug tracker for their distribution

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(bugzilla.mozilla.org :: General, defect, P2)

Description

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

Users of linux distributions should file bugs against packages at the
appropriate channels with their distribution.

When using the helper, we can detect distro versions and redirect people to the
appropriate bugzilla.  Grep the user-agent string for "Fedora" or "Red Hat"
(depending on the variant) and send people filing browser/mail/suite bugs to
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/ instead.  Expert bug reporting should be possible,
still.

Ubuntu and SuSE have equivalent patches in their useragent.  Ubuntu's says
"Ubuntu", I don't know what SuSE says (Novell? SuSE?)

Comment 1

[Wolfgang Rosenauer [:wolfiR]]

(interesting: I never got notified from bugzilla about this bug)

We have SUSE or NLD in the user-agent currently. And now as Novell's bugzilla is
also open for the public this would be possible.

Comment 2

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Hmm, not a bad idea.  And TT2 can do that right in the templates, won't even have to mess with code to do it.

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Hmm. Is this always appropriate? I can imagine scenarios where someone might be appropriately using Red Hat Firefox but our Bugzilla anyway - for example, if they were filing a Thunderbird bug on our version of Thunderbird.

We could certainly put up a message, though, as we used to do for Netscape browsers.

Gerv

Comment 4

[Wolfgang Rosenauer [:wolfiR]]

I'm not sure if this redirection is the way to go. Not only because the problem that not all bugs filed are about the browser as you mentioned.
A big part of the bugs people report are plain mozilla.org bugs and have nothing to do if it's Fedora or SUSE package.
Maybe a better solution would be to do something like:
If the useragent has distributor flags _and_ the bug is filed against a browser component then include the contact person from the distributor to the notification list. Don't know if this is possible at all.

Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

I assert the problem named in comment #3 means we can't do this using a redirect. Given that we get the user agent from the guided entry form, we can tell if someone's using a Linux distro version rather than ours.

We could put up a message, like we used to do for Netscape people. "If you are filing a bug on Ubuntu Firefox, please go to..." Would that do?

Gerv

Comment 6

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Rearranging this component to not have me as the default assignee, so that it doesn't appear like I'm intending to work on bugs that other people could be taking care of if they didn't think I was already doing them.  If this bug is a software issue on b.m.o and you'd like to fix it, the modified source is now available for the patching (see bug 373688).  Reassigning to the new default owner.

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

I'm not sure we actually want to do this; the vast majority of bugs are surely going to be common to our version and theirs. As Bugzilla Helper is my thing, I'm marking this WONTFIX pending a good argument from someone who I should reconsider the idea.

Gerv