Debbugs is the software powering the
Debian project's
issue tracking system
An issue tracking system (also ITS, trouble ticket system, support ticket, request management or incident ticket system) is a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of issues. Issue tracking systems are generally used in colla ...
. 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
Ian Jackson is a longtime free software author and Debian developer. Jackson wrote dpkg (replacing a more primitive Perl tool with the same name), SAUCE (Software Against Unsolicited Commercial Email), userv and debbugs. He used to maintain the ...
, former Debian project leader.
Debbugs consists of a set of
scripts which maintain a
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
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
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
s such as
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...
and
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
. Most of the
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...
is written in
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offic ...
. It is
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
, licensed under the
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...
.
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.
The software was generalized starting from 1997 but was only officially released as Debbugs 1 in January 1999.
Soon after the
GNOME project abandoned Debbugs, the
KDE project also switched to
Bugzilla
Bugzilla is a web-based general-purpose bug tracking system and testing tool originally developed and used by the Mozilla project, and licensed under the Mozilla Public License.
Released as open-source software by Netscape Communications in 199 ...
in 2002.
Deployments
The oldest and largest deployment of Debbugs is the Debian project's. , the Debian debbugs instance had handled over 890,000 bug reports.
The
GNU Project
The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaborat ...
has deployed a public instance of debbugs that can be used by GNU software or
GNU Savannah
GNU Savannah is a project of the Free Software Foundation initiated by Loïc Dachary, which serves as a collaborative software development management system for free Software projects. Savannah currently offers CVS, GNU arch, Subversion, Git, ...
-hosted free software.
Integration
Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...
's
Launchpad recognizes and integrates with Debian's debbugs instance.
See also
References
External links
Debian bug tracking systemDebbugs source codeDebian 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
Bug and issue tracking software
Debian
Free software programmed in Perl
Perl software
{{Free-software-stub