Re: Concern about new binding.

[Sean Whitton]

Hello Matt,

Thank you for your message -- there are however a few misunderstandings
which I'll try to clear up.

On Sun 07 Feb 2021 at 09:41PM -08, Matt Armstrong wrote:

> (notmuch is under the GPL and I believe it is run as a GNU project --
> when I submitted patches they asked me for FSF papers -- but don't hold
> me to that)

It is not an FSF project.  There is no copyright assignment.

> From there, you could also imagine https://debbugs.gnu.org/ re-written
> to use notmuch to store its state. This leads me to
> https://notmuchmail.org/nmbug/ -- which is effectively just that. The
> notmuch project uses itself to manage its own bug database. Developers
> interact with the database using notmuch, change state by modifying tags
> on messages, and synchronize those tags using a synchronization approach
> built on top of git.
>
> For this to work well, individuals need:
>
>  a) a full local copy of the email history for the bug system.
>  b) a current copy of the tags (the bug db metadata)

No, individuals definitely do not require a full local copy of
everything stored in the bug system for nmbug to work.  You do need the
git repository containing all the tags, but it is fine to only have some
of the messages (e.g. only recent messages).

I suggest thinking of the nmbug tagging as independent of debbugs state,
at least to begin with.  I think they're mostly solving different
problems.

> Which brings me to: if the point is to make certain kinds of bugs more
> discoverable, adding that feture to debbugs is another option. For
> example, if the bugs tagged "interface change" were interesting, debbugs
> could send updates for such bugs to an "interface change" mailing list
> that interested people could subscribe to.

Well, you'd have to have debbugs mail the entire bug log to that mailing
list at the point at which it gets tagged, which seems a bit awkward.
The nmbug approach does not involve sending any messages in order to
communicate a tagging of the thread.

-- 
Sean Whitton