Python to use a non open source bug tracker?

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Paul Rubin schrieb:
> True, though GPL 3 tries to address that.  Most important is to figure
> out the underlying attitude of the host.  I realize it's the same
> crufty software (or worse) as SF and therefore maybe not so attractive
> on those grounds already, but did you think about migrating to
> Savannah?

We had a very clear procedure. We (the committee) didn't want to
manage the installation ourselves, or figure out how to set up
the software, or get the data into it. Instead, we sent out a call
to the community to come up with a demo installation for evaluation
purposes. Nobody offered to migrate the data into Savannah, so
we didn't consider it (nobody actually offered to show-case
Savannah for us, period).

There were several reasons to get off SF; it not being open
source was never a reason. Instead, ongoing complaints about
service level, and the UI were the main complaints. Savannah
is IMO worse than SF wrt. user interface, so it would have
lost in the evaluation even if a demo installation was provided.
We want to improve with that switch, not decrease usability.

>> Despite what other people say, this *is* an issue. On python.org,
>> things that should get done don't, just because there is no
>> volunteer doing them. Hosting such a service elsewhere has the
>> clear advantage that you don't have to worry about most routine
>> maintenance jobs.
> 
> I have to wonder too why Jira is so sure to be more reliable than SF.

It may change as time evolves, but at the moment, they are *pretty*
responsive to our inquiries. Atlassian (the company behind it) uses
the same infrastructure for their commercial offerings, as well;
this might mean that we get the same availability (it might also
mean that paying customers get more attention than non-paying ones
in the long term).

With any kind of partner, there is always the risk that they don't
deliver, and you always have to invest some trust in the beginning.
It was this way when Guido moved Python to SF, and indeed, SF did
a very good job for several years (IMO). They only went unreliable
when they grow beyond expectations. The same could happen to
Atlassian, of course, in which case we would have to move again.

OTOH, the same could also happen with a group of volunteers.
It's always possible that they all run away (like that distutils
is unmaintained, and PyXML is unmaintained). Volunteers are actually
unlikely to persist in their efforts over a period of 10 years,
as their lifes and priorities change over time. If you trust
such a service to a single volunteer, you might find that the
service can become very unusable very quickly. For example, the
Python Job Board was in a very bad shape for several months,
until we managed to find Peter Kropf to take it over (who
does a very good job ever since he started).

Regards,
Martin