Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad Entry: Originally bug-workaround then Bug #54652

• Created: PaoloSammicheli - May 11, 2011

• Contributors:

• Packages affected: Malone

Summary

Provides a specific field for known workarounds for a bug.

Release Note

The field should be optional making the roll out smooth. Thanks to Brian Murray we've a statistic about bugs which already provides the workaround keyword in the description:

• WORKAROUND = 698
• WORK AROUND = 21
• workaround = 8393
• work around = 1226

So at June 2011 we can expect to have about 10.000 bugs with a documented workaround.

Rationale

In a growing platform we cannot fix all the bugs the users report but we can try to provide a valuable service showing clearly a workarounds for it. This information is quite importante from the user perspective and having it separated and well displayed would improve the user experience in using Ubuntu.

Benefit

• Improve the launchpad usefulness; users will be more inclined to use launchpad for reporting/searching their bugs
• Introduce a new bitesize task for community partecipation in QA activities
• Improve quality perception around bugs
• Can improve triage and cause detection
• The information would be used even for customers support
• The info would be used easily for mashup with different sites (Forum, Wiki, Ask Ubuntu, etc.)

User stories

Paolo is an ubuntu member and he founds a bug related to his video card and tried to report it with ubuntu-bug. Later his bug will be marked as duplicated and Paolo will get an email about duplications of his bug and the known workaround. Trying to act the workaround would help to understand if the bug is really a duplicated or not.

Amber is a non technical end user and she ha trouble with his wifi when suddenly she gets a network manager crash and she reports the bug with the apport wizard. After a check apport reply to Amber that the bug is already known and display a Known Work Around for it. Amber is happy because can deal with the bug.

Jorge is a power user and wants to start contributing to Ubuntu. Trying bug triage he founds that reproducing bugs, looking for solutions in the web with google and filling known workarounds is a perfet bitsize task for him and he's pleased to see his contribution taking shape in Ubuntu.

Assumptions

This should be a quicky feature and should be kept very simple

Design

Actual Design

In the actual design the Bug description include also few notes about workarounds. It's not possible to perform filters search results.

Desired Design

The new Workaround description would be placed just under the actual description

Search Filter

The workaround field should be included in search filters.

Workaround URL export

Providing a fixed url pattern that export the workaround in a plain text format can allow integration with external sites very easily (Forum, Wiki, Ask Ubuntu, etc)

IE: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/NNNNNN/workaround

Implementation

To be discussed

UI Changes

To be discussed

Code Changes

To be discussed

Migration

Test/Demo Plan

Unresolved issues

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec