[pkg-fso-maint] Bug#496692: bugs.debian.org: upstream tag and usertags doesn't play well together

[Luca Capello]

Package: bugs.debian.org
Severity: normal

Hi there!

Yesterday I tried for the first time the 'usertags' option [1], as you
can read from my post in the pkg-fso mailing list [2].

The main fact, here, is that the pkg-fso group is working on packages
which cannot be uploaded yet to Debian [3].  Thus, we decided to use
usertags to have a complete view of bugs in all the packages we maintain
or in packages necessary for the Openmoko FreeRunner.

First problem: since I erroneously thought that usertags are a
completely different beast WRT tags, I set some 'upstream' usertags as
well.  This resulted in a strange view of [4]: it also included bugs
tagged 'upstream' but which have nothing to do with the 'users'.  It can
be reproduced adding the 'upstream' tag at the end of the BTS page.
This was something Don called an "interesting" result ;-)

From the discussion I had with Don on IRC, I (again probably miss-)
understood that the 'upstream' tag would have been included when I look
for usertags.  Thus, I removed all the 'upstream' usertags and while I
haven't the "interesting" result anymore, bugs with tag 'upstream' are
not included in [3].

This is something expected, because I don't see how debbugs can
automatically distinguish between all the 'upstream'-tagged bugs and the
one 'users' want.

I don't know which is the best solution here and moreover I'm not an
expert on usertags, but I came up with two of them:

1) using a modified 'upstream-$WHATEVER' usertag

   This solve the situation forever, but at the same time adds more
   usertags, let's say pkg-foo wants the same with 'upstream-foo'...

   FWIW, I'm going to use this solution until this bug will be closed.

2) defining a particular case for the 'upstream' usertag, which actually
   acts as a normal tag

   Every time the 'upstream' usertag is set, this is treated as a normal
   'upstream' tag with the exception that it's registered as an usertag
   for the user

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca

Footnotes: 
[1] http://wiki.debian.org/bugs.debian.org/usertags
[2] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-fso-maint/2008-August/000037.html
[3] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianOnFreeRunner
[4] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=pkg-fso-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org;tags=upstream

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
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