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Greater transparency in the bug process... Less private bugs
I feel there needs to be a bit more transparency in the bug process. I'd like to see more specific reasoning provided as to why the bug is private. An example of such a bug is: http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com/show...
If its because it affects a closed source licenced component for instance, it should say the reason. It just sounds a bit funny for a bug as basic as "add-on skeleton ready for use" to be marked private..Trust goes both ways...
If its because it affects a closed source licenced component for instance, it should say the reason. It just sounds a bit funny for a bug as basic as "add-on skeleton ready for use" to be marked private..Trust goes both ways...
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Hey Andrew,
It's sort of difficult because Bugzilla doesn't provide us a way (by default) to give a reason for why a particular bug is marked private or not. You're always welcome to ask on GS (as you did here) or on IRC and we'll try to answer as best we can.
For this specific bug (16669), we're working with a third party partner on a really cool Songbird partnership. Since our workflow is to work on code and attach patches for review to the bug, we don't want to run the risk of accidentally disclosing IP, proprietary code or the exact nature of the partnership (per the partner's request) until the partnership is publicly launched. For Jackson 5 and Kanye, you'll likely see bugs from time to time marked this way until everything is public and we can disclose more about who we're working with.
We really value transparency and openness, and we appreciate all you guys wanting to know more. We're trying to keep as many bugs open as possible, unfortunately from time to time we will need to single specific bugs out as private, as in this case here.
What's really valuable is that 99% of the work we're doing with this partner is finding its way into the core product for all our end users, so they're basically helping to fund open source development (as is common for many open source projects) and helping to make Songbird even better... but in the meantime, they've asked for all of us to be discrete until they've publicly launched.
Hope that helps (somewhat)
cheers,
steve
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Inappropriate?Hi Andrew,
We're doing some work with third parties to make Songbird better, and we have to respect their wishes with regard to their intellectual property during development.
We will open this work up to the community when we're able to do so. -
Inappropriate?G'day Laura, I don't totally disagree. Plenty of projects do privatise bugs for that same reason.
However, I'd like to see more exact reasoning as to why that specific one was. If its a security bug for instance, it would be nice if it said "Rob wanted it that way because its a security bug". If it was because it involves licenced code that can't really be shown, it should say so too.
Otherwise, for the public, we can see the repo and check-ins, but not the bugs. There could be either 30 bugs filed which are private due to affecting closed source code, 30 bugs filed which contain copyrighted files attached, or 30 security bugs which are sitting there for 6 months that haven't been touched.
It just makes us feel safer, and despite being an obviously trustworthy company, would certainly make it even more so, because we have a greater idea of what's going on behind the scenes (even if we aren't allowed to walk backstage).
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Inappropriate?Hey Andrew,
It's sort of difficult because Bugzilla doesn't provide us a way (by default) to give a reason for why a particular bug is marked private or not. You're always welcome to ask on GS (as you did here) or on IRC and we'll try to answer as best we can.
For this specific bug (16669), we're working with a third party partner on a really cool Songbird partnership. Since our workflow is to work on code and attach patches for review to the bug, we don't want to run the risk of accidentally disclosing IP, proprietary code or the exact nature of the partnership (per the partner's request) until the partnership is publicly launched. For Jackson 5 and Kanye, you'll likely see bugs from time to time marked this way until everything is public and we can disclose more about who we're working with.
We really value transparency and openness, and we appreciate all you guys wanting to know more. We're trying to keep as many bugs open as possible, unfortunately from time to time we will need to single specific bugs out as private, as in this case here.
What's really valuable is that 99% of the work we're doing with this partner is finding its way into the core product for all our end users, so they're basically helping to fund open source development (as is common for many open source projects) and helping to make Songbird even better... but in the meantime, they've asked for all of us to be discrete until they've publicly launched.
Hope that helps (somewhat)
cheers,
steve
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Inappropriate?G'day,
Wasn't curious about that bug entirely, but just thought it may be nice in general ;) Some people have a way of blowing things way out of proportion, and just thought it might have helped prevent them from doing so (seriously, speak to any LInux user and they pretend that UAC pops up every 2 seconds whilst linux never asks for root permission).
It may be worth changing the private message though to click users through to GS or the chatroom so that people can ask. Or even a mailto. Pity that bugzilla doesn't allow comments though. Might make a nice feature suggestion to them ;-) -
Inappropriate?Can you explain what is 'private' about songbird?
What intellectual property is in songbird that isn't open source?
It appears be a rebrand of firefox with a music player built-in -- and music players -- open source ones are less than a dime a dozen (free).
So what is this "intellectual" property thing that we are supposed to imagine is a reason for keeping us from logging bugs.
It appears this is just a closed source product that designed to sap our resources and generate a fake community feel that the songbird creators can feed off of and sell to advertisers.
It's really a shame, because I'd like to help make it better and report bugs and make suggestions, but all we get is a 3rd party "wiki-like" forum Get Satsifaction" to whine on -- which has NOTHING to do with songbird -- it's just a place where us users can go and whine while the songbird employees and just ignore us and any problems we have.
Zero accountability -- no bug tracking. No problem reporting.
Nothing.
It's distasteful. -
This reply was removed on 10/11/09.
see the change log -
+1, totally :) -
Inappropriate?G'day,
Actually, the privatised bugs mostly seem related to the mysterious ACME9000 device driver. There is a strong indication that it isn't a test device, but a device released by a major manufacturer. I also now strongly believe that it was privatised due to contractual agreements with the ACME9000 manufacturer (who have prohibited an announcement being made). When I posted this idea, I was caught offguard because the private bug titles posted at the time were vague, and didn't mention ACME9000 in their title (so I had no idea what was going on).
I also still feel Songbird has EXCELLENT support. Two responses in this thread were made by actual employees (one who is a major Songbird developer), and unlike many other companies, their responses aren't scripted or offshored to asia. In fact, other companies who receive bug reports often don't even properly test many bugs, and simply spam submitters with scripted messages, that a patch was released that "may rectify it". In comparison, a huge chunk of my submissions for songbird have been officially reviewed, and fixed.
Btw, not sure what you mean by no bug tracking (bugzilla exists). And unlike most companies (such as Apple), you can access the vast majority of bugs without even needing an NDA.
I also believe Get Satisfaction is the right place for support. Since it isn't run by POTI, its very difficult to completely retract or modify responses, so a company can't discreetly change posts, and claim that they didn't. Thats good for POTI because they are an honest company (the inability to retract posts does good things for a companies reputation), and great for customers, because its a lot harder for them to deceive us.
The only real problem I am seeing with POTI is that there simply aren't enough developers to add features fast enough. However, I predict that the announcement of ACME9000 and video support may catalyse Songbird's growth (increasing revenue, which in turn will boost the number of hired developers), and interest other manufacturers.
Btw, I'm community too..
Andrew
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