Re: [RFC] GitLab issue tracker labeling process: arch/target, os, and accel labels

[Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com>]

On Mon, Jun 14 2021, John Snow <jsnow@redhat.com> wrote:

(...)

> # OS
>
> Currently "os: XXX" for BSD, Linux, Windows, and macOS.
>
> https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/labels?subscribed=&search=os%3A
>
> Multiple OS labels can be applied to an issue.
>
> Originally, we kept this label somewhat vague and have been using it to 
> identify both the host AND guest involved with an issue.
>
> Stefan Weil has requested that we refactor this to separate the concerns 
> so that he can identify issues where Windows is the host without wading 
> through numerous reports where Windows is merely the guest. Reasonable 
> request.
>
> Shall we split it into "host: XXX" and "guest: XXX" for {BSD, Linux, 
> Windows, macOS}?

Yes to splitting and using something like "hostOS:" and "guestOS:", as
had already been suggested downthread.

For the guest OS, I think we also want "Other". It can be valuable to
know that the guest OS might be doing something that is not done by the
OSes usually run as a guest, so I think this is useful information.

What about linux-user? We probably can't categorize what is being run
very neatly.

>
> This isn't too hard to do at initial triage time, but we'll need to sift 
> through the bugs we've labeled so far and re-label them. Help on this 
> would be appreciated. I would prefer we create a *new* set of labels and 
> then draw down on the old labels instead of just renaming them. That 
> way, the old label can be used as a re-triage queue.
>
>
> # arch/target
>
> Currently "target: XXX" for alpha, arm, avr, cris, hexagon, hppa, i386, 
> m68k, microblaze, mips, nios2, openrisc, ppc, riscv, rx, s390x, sh4, 
> sparc, tricore, xtensa.
>
> https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/labels?subscribed=&search=target%3A
>
> The names map 1:1 to the directories in target/.
> The names in [square brackets] in the label descriptions correspond 1:1 
> with the SysEmuTarget QAPI enum defined in qapi/machine.json.
>
> Multiple target labels can be applied to an issue. Originally, this was 
> named "arch", so this was to allow multiple architectures to be 
> specified to cover the host/guest environment. If we disentangle this, 
> we may still want to allow multiple labels to cover bugs that might 
> affect multiple targets, though that case might be rare.
>
> Recently, we renamed this from "arch: XXX" to "target: XXX", though the 
> label had been being used for both the host and guest architecture, so 
> this will need to be re-audited to remove cases where the label had been 
> applied for the host architecture.
>
> We probably want to keep a set of labels that apply to the host 
> architecture. These are useful for build failures, environment setup 
> issues, or just documenting the exact environment on which an issue was 
> observed.
>
> We won't likely require the full set of targets to be duplicated for 
> this purpose: possibly just the most common ones. I assume those are:
>
> arm, i386, ppc, s390x
>
> How should we tag those? "host-arch: XXX"?

host-arch sounds good; maybe add a catch-all "host-arch: other" to catch
uncommon host architectures?

>
> What I would like to avoid is creating labels like "host: windows-i386" 
> where the cross matrix of ({host,guest} X OS x ARCH) starts to require 
> ever-increasing specificity of initial triage labels and may increase 
> the risk of overly-specified bugs going unnoticed. Maybe my concern is 
> unfounded, but I think the over-specificity will hurt more than help at 
> this stage.

I think having "host-arch:" and "hostOS:" is enough.