2. What is Bugzilla?
Bugzilla is a âdefect tracking systemâ that allows individuals or
groups of developers to keep track of outstanding bugs in their
product effectively.
It was developed using free open source tools and is itself free.
Despite being free, Bugzilla has many features its expensive
counterparts lack.
Currently in use by Mozilla, Gnome, Open Office, Apache,
Eclipse, Red Hat, Nasa, AMD and many more!
Gerald Murray
3. History of Bugzilla
When Mozilla first came online in 1998, one of the first products
that was released was Bugzilla, an open source bug system
implemented using freely available open source tools.
Bugzilla was originally for use at Mozilla to replace the in-
house system then in use at Netscape.
Before Mozilla released it as open source, they decided to port
Bugzilla to Perl, with the hopes that more people would be able
to contribute to it, since Perl seemed to be a more popular
language. Bugzilla 2.0 was the result of that port to Perl, and
the first version released to the public via anonymous CVS.
Since then a large number of projects, both commercial and
free have adapted it as their primary method of tracking
software defects.
Gerald Murray
4. What does Bugzilla do?
Track bugs and code changes.
Communication with teammates.
Submit and review patches.
Manage quality assurance.
âBugzilla can help you get a handle on the software
development process. Successful projects often are the result
of successful organization and communication. Bugzilla is a
powerful tool that will help your team get organized and
communicate effectively.â
Gerald Murray
5. Features
Advanced Search Capabilities
- New users can use a simple Google-like search for bugs
while more advanced users can filter searched for very specific
queries.
Email Notifications
- Users can choose to be notified by email about any changes
made to any bugs in bugzilla.
File/Modify Bugs By Email
- Users can send Bugzilla an email that will create a new bug,
or will modify an existing bug.
Time Tracking
- Users can display the time they think they will need to fix a
bug, time spent on a bug, and deadline to fix the bug.
Gerald Murray
6. Features (continued)
Strong Security
- Bugzilla runs under Perl's "taint" mode to prevent SQL
Injection, and has a very careful system in place to prevent
Cross-Site Scripting.
Customization
- Everything in Bugzilla is done using templates, from emails to
the user interface. These templates are written in HTML, CSS,
and Java Script so they are easy to edit.
Localization
- Depending on the browser and language a user is connecting
to Bugzilla from, they will be served in their language. This is
great for global open source projects.
Gerald Murray