Time ago I found an interesting tool for the desktop. It’s Java client for Bugzilla called Deskzilla.
I’m not fan of Java at all, but I have to say that the application is very powerful and it’s not so slow…
Basically it let you fill bugs, search bugs (and save the searches) in a way a lot easier than the bugzilla itself. But the coolest thing is it let you make searches offline. It has even a screenshot editor to add marks, texts and more to the screenshots before to attach them to the bugs.
I don’t know, it seems very interesting and useful for who work everyday with Bugzilla.
The only thing is this is not any kind of Free Software/Open Source code, but they have special license keys for free software project.
Actually I ask one for working with GNOME and the give me one and ask me to public it so any GNOME’s bugzilla user can use this software for free.
If anyone want the GNOME key, just take it here.
Going to give this a try in hopes of easing the pain whenever I have to interact with the Gnome Bugzilla.
(spoiled launchpad user. 🙁 )
I hope this can be useful for you. I know what kind of pain could be Bgzilla web interfac itself…
I think this could help a lot of people from distros (like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and so on) which need to triage bugs and search their bugs in GNOME.
The searches and powerful but still easy enough to use them.
Good luck with the try. You’ll tell me 😉
Licensing sounds a bit like BitKeeper … better keep the hands off of proprietary solutions altogether.
I’ll reply to you, but it is also for the anonymous one (I don’t really like to answer to anonymous people…).
I trully believe since a lot of years in Free Software. More than probably you can think. But I’m not fanatic and I understand anyone can use the business model tehy believe and anyone can use the software they think is better for them.
This is just a tool you can use or not. And also it’s a tool which is not necessary at all. Because you have already the real tool, which is Bugzilla, and its web interface.
So this is just a tool and license to make the life easier to those people who are pracmatic and just want to collaborate with GNOME or any kind of FLOSS project in their own time.
I don’t see any evil in this approach. Anyway, you are free to think whatever you like.
Cheers
Wow, this is a really cool idea. I’ll have to check it out sometime 🙂
People never learn. As erlehmann said BitKeeper should be enough of a warning.
But there’s more (from the license page):
“Eligible projects must be both open-source and non-commercial;”
Is this for those “shared licenses” types from Microsoft. Because I can’t find a license in OSI that’s “non-commercial”.
I see that’s cheap to buy some goodwill among “open source” software developers: “just forget about freedom”.
The good thing of the BitKeeper comparison is that it means we are going to have sort-of git solution 😉
Are you sure you can publish the key for *everyone* to download?
Yes, I’m sure. The key is just to work with the GNOME’s bugzilla. It let you work for free and without restrictions just for that bugzilla, so there is no problem with use it by anyone.
This is from the mail they sent me:
“Please find attached a site license for Gnome. Feel free to share the
license key with anyone interested or post it on the web for public
download. The license allows any number of users, and it is locked to your
project’s Bugzilla URL. If in the future URL changes, please let me know and
I’ll create another license key.”
Feel free to use it 😉
Great Juanje I’ll try it out sometimes.
I think Deskzilla is a great product (and they also have a similar solution for JIRA), in my company we got licenses for all non-dev types that work with Bugzilla (QA and management).
For developers, we work with Eclipse in house and their Mylyn project offers pretty good Bugzilla integration without some of the nifty search features of Deskzilla but with integration into the development workflow. It is also free software and I also recommend it – if you spend your time in Eclipse, here’s one more good reason not to leave the IDE.