launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Christian Robottom Reis <kiko@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Aug 07, 2009 at 04:50:27PM -0400, Karl Fogel wrote:
> We don't have good answers for some of his questions.  About ease of
> use, for example: our tracker only accepts mails from addresses
> registered with Launchpad.  The documentation also claims that the mails
> have to be GPG-signed (https://help.launchpad.net/Bugs/EmailInterface),
> though I'm not so sure about that -- I'm pretty sure I've manipulated
> the bug tracker just fine without GGP-signing any mails.  

Comments don't need GPG-signing; changing metadata does.

> But the must-be-a-registered-email-address thing is a problem: it means
> that regular Emacs users, who might never have heard of Launchpad
> before, can't just send in a bug report by email.  Hmmm.

How do they handle these haphazard bug reports today? Are they emailed
in, and does the fact that they emailed means that the reporter gets
email back on any traffic related to that bug?

I'm asking because if they don't care if the user can be automatically
contacted once the bug is reported, they could just use an email gateway
that filed bugs using a forget reporter. It's not great but if that's
the tradeoff..

> interface is really useful, but is it ready to be the primary interface
> for a free software project to interact with its users?  I'm not sure
> the answer is "no", but these questions make me unsure the answer is
> "yes" either...

I think part of the issue is that Emacs users are going to be a special
bunch; they will definitely be happy to use email, where most users of
desktop software are comfortable using a web browser to view and
manipulate bugs (cf the Ajax work we've done, for instance). Our email
interface is definitely very useful to people that have Launchpad
accounts and care to GPG-sign, and I agree with Martin that we should
use SPF and DomainKeys to simplify that requirement. The next step in
improving that would be lazy account and bug creation.
-- 
Christian Robottom Reis | [+55 16] 3376 0125 | http://launchpad.net/~kiko
                        | [+55 16] 9112 6430 | http://async.com.br/~kiko