Extending bts-link beyond debbugs (starting with mantis)

We want to be able to extend bts-link (or -like services) so that bugs linked between different bugtrackers can be linked to each-other and the status changes monitored, as part of our tasks in Helios (see LinkedBugsMonitoring).

We’ll probably try and work, until July, on connecting to Mantis as the “distribution/downstream” bugtracker instead of debbugs, and see what architectural changes would be required to test that for the Helios platform specific needs.

I’d like to be able to have a working prototype for July, which would also demonstrate the LinkedData and Semantic Web approach to navigating the bugs of the open source ecosystem, so that we can discuss it at the Debconf. I’ve filed a proposal for a paper at DebConf for this purpose : towards more semantic web into Debian servers (UDD and likes) (see previous post on that matter also).

I suppose that our Mandriva colleagues will be able to move on on bugzilla for SWIM/Mephisto so that we can quickly have very interesting prototypes.

I miss time to describe all that in more details (and will appreciate the coming holidays week 😉 ).

Comments welcome, of course.

Introduction to bts-link slides

bts-link is a very useful tool which helps keep track of bug status changes when a Debian bug has been marked as linked to another bug in an other (upstream) bugtracker.

I’ve prepared some slides of introduction for our partners in Helios to introduce them to that tool :

These slides can also be found on the helios site (ODP source).

Also, I’ve started contributing to bts-link in the frame of our work on Helios, and I’m glad my contributions have been integrated, although learning git in the way was kind of a pain 😉

More details about bts-link at : http://bts-link.alioth.debian.org/