Write a Bug Report (Activity)

Title	Write a Bug Report
Overview	In this part, students will gain some basic knowledge about bug tracking systems, and how that can be used in FOSS projects. Students will also check and confirm the existence of a reported bug (both in a stable version, and in an unstable version), and report out their findings using Bugzilla.
Prerequisites
Learning Objectives	After successfully completing this activity, the learner should be able to: describe the role that a bug tracker plays in a FOSS project, describe the different types of issues stored in a bug tracker and their priorities, identify and track the status of a particular bug report in the gnome-music project, confirm the existence of a bug, in a given version of gnome-music, write a bug report.
Process Skills Practiced

Part 1. Read some articles

In this part, students will gain some basic knowledge about bug tracking systems, and how that can be used in FOSS projects. Students will also check and confirm the existence of a reported bug (both in a stable version, and in an unstable version), and report out their findings using Bugzilla.

“Bug tracking systems are a form of change management and organization used by FOSS projects. Bug trackers do far more than simply keep track of bugs. They also are used to hold new feature requests, patches, and some tasks. Bug trackers are also called request trackers, issue trackers, request trackers and ticket systems.” Intro to Bug Trackers (Activity)

• Reading 1: Karl Fogel's chapter on bug trackers http://producingoss.com/en/bug-tracker.html
• Reading 2: Wikipedia's page on Bug Tracking Systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_tracking_system
• Reading 3: Bug writing, by bugzilla https://bugzilla.gnome.org/page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html

Part 2. Review existing bug reports

In this part we’ll review documented bugs in the lab-3-built unstable version. For this please follow each of the following

1. Create a Bugzilla account: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/createaccount.cgi

2. Search the bugs in gnome-music: in https://bugzilla.gnome.org/query.cgi Fill the following search fields

• status: open,
• product: Applications (gnome-music)
• words: music

3. Note the different status: UNCONFIRMED, NEW, ASSIGNED, REOPENED, NEEDINFO. Open and review at least one from each category

4. In class, discuss what each category is, and come with a definition/short description for each.

5. Now follow the link https://bugzilla.gnome.org/browse.cgi?product=gnome-music to search for version-specific bug reports on gnome-music.

Part 3. Review existing bug reports

In this part, we’ll try to confirm the existence of a bug that was already reported in Bugzilla. We’ll test the existence of the bug in both, the installed (stable) version of the software, and also in the lab-3-built unstable version. Then, using the “Additional Comments” textbox we can add our own comments to confirm the existence of the bug. Also, if the original bug report is not very clear, it is incomplete, or it contains wrong information, we should include this in our comments.

Part 4. File a bug

To file for a new bug, you should follow the following link:

• Click on the New link in the upper left corner of the screen
• Then select the product for which you are filing the bug report. For gnome-music you should click on Applications, then gnome-music (or use this link: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=gnome-music )
• Then you will have to select the version, severity of the bug, the OS, a summary, and a description of the bug. You can also add attachments to support your report.

Deliverables:

A new bug report will be created.