Debbugs is the software powering the Debian project's issue tracking system. Uniquely it doesn't have any form of web-interface to edit bug reports – all modification is done through email. Debbugs was mainly written by Ian Jackson, former Debian project leader.
Debbugs consists of a set of scripts which maintain a database of problem reports. The scripts have been parameterised so that they can be used for other projects besides Debian. The system runs on Unix-like operating systems such as Unix and Linux. Most of the source code is written in Perl. It is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License.
It is strongly recommended that people use the reportbug program when reporting bugs in Debian.
History
Debbugs started as a rudimentary issue tracking system in 1994.2 The software was generalized starting from 1997 but was only officially released as Debbugs 1 in January 1999.3
Soon after the GNOME project abandoned Debbugs, the KDE project also switched to Bugzilla in 2002.4
Deployments
The oldest and largest deployment of Debbugs is the Debian project's.5 As of March 2018[update], the Debian debbugs instance had handled over 890,000 bug reports.6
The GNU Project has deployed a public instance of debbugs7 that can be used by GNU software or GNU Savannah-hosted free software.8
Integration
Ubuntu's Launchpad recognizes and integrates with Debian's debbugs instance.9
See also
- Free and open-source software portal
External links
- Debian bug tracking system
- Debbugs source code
- Debian wiki's page on Debian's issue tracking system, with a good part of information on Debbugs in general
- Debian bug report logs as they shown in November 1995, reflecting an early state of Debbugs
References
"Reporting bugs in Debian". Debian Project. Retrieved 1 February 2014. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting ↩
Jackson, Ian. "Debian bug tracking software". Archived from the original on 21 September 2019. Retrieved 16 June 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20190921050315/http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ian/debbugs/ ↩
debbugs source package's changelog http://ftp-master.metadata.debian.org/changelogs/main/d/debbugs/unstable_changelog ↩
Naber, Daniel (18 September 2002). "KDE Switches To Bugzilla". http://dot.kde.org/2002/09/18/kde-switches-bugzilla ↩
"Debian bug tracking system". Debian Project. Retrieved 2010-06-07. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/ ↩
"Debian Bug report logs - #892000". Debian Project. 2018-03-04. Retrieved 2018-03-20. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=892000 ↩
"GNU Bug Tracker". GNU Project. Retrieved 2010-06-07. http://debbugs.gnu.org/ ↩
"Using this system to track your project's bugs". GNU Project. Retrieved 2011-09-15. http://debbugs.gnu.org/Using.html ↩
"Bug trackers - Debian Bug tracker". Ubuntu. Retrieved 2010-06-07. https://launchpad.net/bugs/bugtrackers/debbugs ↩