[Scummvm-devel] SF.net tracker vs. trac

[Max Horn]

If you want to play a little bit with Trac and Mantis, here are test  
installs of the SF.net hosted apps for us. Feel free to create test  
issues etc. (WE can wipe it and start over from scratch at a later  
point).

Trac: <https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/scummvm/>
Mantis: <https://sourceforge.net/apps/mantisbt/scummvm/>

For Redmine or BugZilla or JIRA, we'd have to host it externally. Of  
course the same could be done with Mantis or Trac. But using the  
SF.net hostedapps would have some advantages. I'll try to list some  
pros and cons, though the list is far from complete.

SF.net hostedapps:
* Pro: Every SF.net user can make reports while logged in, no need for  
us to manage users
* Pro: For Trac, they'd help with the data migration
* Pro: We don't have to do any admin work.
* Con: At least currently, it seems to be rather slow
* Con: We'd be limited in what we can tweaks (e.g. installing addons,  
custom theming, etc.)

Custom install:
* Pro: we could use an arbitrary URL, such as bugs.scummvm.org
* Pro AND Con: We'd have the ability & the necessity to do our own  
user management
* Pro: We could do a custom theme
* Con: somebody would have to maintain this application
  -> 100% flexibility with all its pros and cons ;)

As for which system to us, I feel that for a developer, Bugzilla is  
really great, but for end users, it is rather complicated,  
overwhelming and outright scary to use. I also here that it's not very  
pleasant to install and manage.

Compared to this, the other projects seem make an effort to be more  
user friendly. I'd say Mantis, Trac and Redmine succeed, I can't  
really comment on JIRA at this time due to lack of experience. What I  
dislike about Trac on SF.net is that I don't see a way to add custom  
fields. This is, however, possible with Mantis. I like Mantis so far,  
but wonder how well it can import stuff. Need to do some more research  
on that.

Some people expressed that they "hate" Trac on IRC at some point. I'd  
like to know how serious that was, and whether there are specific  
reasons for that.


Cheers,
Max