RFP: Roundup -- A Simple and Effective Issue Tracker in Python
Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Roundup is a prototype version of the bug tracking
(and other) system selected as a finalist in
Software Carpentry. Even if this is only a prototype,
I think having the package at an early stage will be
good for both Debian and Roundep.
http://www.lfw.org/ping/roundup.html
http://software-carpentry.codesourcery.com/first-round-results.html
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Fine-Grained Mailing Lists
The key strength of Roundup is that it generates a small virtual
mailing list for each new issue. In a way, this is like implementing
private conversation rooms in e-mail. Although the mechanism is very
simple, the emergent properties are quite effective. Here's how it
works:
a.New issues are always submitted by sending an e-mail message.
This message is saved in a mail spool attached to the newly-created
issue record, and copied to the relatively large user community of
the application so everyone knows the issue has been raised.
b.All e-mail messages sent by Roundup have their "Reply-To" field
set to send mail back to Roundup, and have the issue's ID number in
the Subject field. So, any replies to the initial announcement and
subsequent threads are all received by Roundup and appended to the
spool.
c.Each issue has a "nosy list" of people interested in the issue.
Any mail tagged with the issue's ID number is copied to this list
of people, and any users found in the From:, To:, or Cc: fields of
e-mail about the issue are automatically added to the nosy list.
Whenever a user edits an item in the Web interface, they are also
added to the list.
The result is that no one ever has to worry about subscribing to
anything. Indicating interest in an issue is sufficient, and if you
want to bring someone new into the conversation, all you need to do is
Cc: a message to them. It turns out that no one ever has to worry
about unsubscribing, either: the nosy lists are so specific in scope
that the conversation tends to die down by itself when the issue is
resolved or people no longer find it sufficiently important. The
transparent capture of the mail spool attached to each issue also
yields a nice searchable knowledge repository over time.
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The license is as follows:
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Roundup - an issue-tracking system integrating the Web and e-mail
Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Ka-Ping Yee
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this software and associated
documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the
Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice
shall be included in all copies or substantial
portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS
OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR
OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
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