1 page.title=Life of a Bug 2 @jd:body 3 4 <!-- 5 Copyright 2010 The Android Open Source Project 6 7 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); 8 you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. 9 You may obtain a copy of the License at 10 11 http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 12 13 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software 14 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, 15 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. 16 See the License for the specific language governing permissions and 17 limitations under the License. 18 --> 19 <div id="qv-wrapper"> 20 <div id="qv"> 21 <h2>In this document</h2> 22 <ol id="auto-toc"> 23 </ol> 24 </div> 25 </div> 26 <p>The Android Open Source Project maintains a public issue tracker where you 27 can report bugs and request features for the core Android software stack. 28 (For details on this issue tracker, please see the 29 <a href="report-bugs.html">Reporting Bugs</a> page). 30 Reporting bugs is great (thank you!), but what happens to a bug report once 31 you file it? This page describes the Life of a Bug.</p> 32 33 <p>*Please note: the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) issue tracker is 34 intended only for bugs and feature requests related to the core Android 35 software stack, and is a technical tool for the Open Source community.</p> 36 37 <p>This is not a customer support forum. 38 You can find support for Nexus devices on 39 <a href="http://support.google.com/nexus">Google's Nexus support site</a>. 40 Support for other devices is provided by the device manufacturers or by the 41 carriers selling those devices.</p> 42 43 <p>Support for Google applications is through 44 <a href="http://support.google.com/">Google's support site</a>. Support 45 for 3rd-party applications is with each application's developer, e.g. 46 through the contact information provided on Google Play.</p> 47 48 <p>Here's the life of a bug, in a nutshell:</p> 49 <ol> 50 <li> 51 <p>A bug is filed, and has the state "New".</p> 52 </li> 53 <li> 54 <p>An AOSP maintainer periodically reviews and triages bugs. Bugs are 55 triaged into one of four "buckets": New, Open, No-Action, or Resolved.</p> 56 </li> 57 <li> 58 <p>Each bucket includes a number of states that provide more detail on the 59 fate of the issue.</p> 60 </li> 61 <li> 62 <p>Bugs in the "Resolved" bucket will eventually be included in a future 63 release of the Android software.</p> 64 </li> 65 </ol> 66 <h1 id="bucket-details">Bucket Details</h1> 67 <p>Here is some additional information on each bucket, what it means, and how 68 it's handled.</p> 69 <h2 id="new-issues">New Issues</h2> 70 <p>New issues include bug reports that are not yet being acted upon. The two 71 states are:</p> 72 <ul> 73 <li> 74 <p><em>New:</em> 75 The bug report has not yet been triaged (that is, reviewed by an AOSP maintainer.)</p> 76 </li> 77 <li> 78 <p><em>NeedsInfo:</em> 79 The bug report has insufficient information to act 80 upon. The person who reported the bug needs to provide additional detail 81 before it can be triaged. If enough time passes and no new information is 82 provided, the bug may be closed by default, as one of the No-Action 83 states.</p> 84 </li> 85 </ul> 86 <h2 id="open-issues">Open Issues</h2> 87 <p>This bucket contains bugs that need action, but which are still 88 unresolved, pending a change to the source code.</p> 89 <ul> 90 <li> 91 <p><em>Unassigned:</em> 92 The bug report has been recognized as an adequately 93 detailed report of a legitimate issue, but has not yet been assigned to an 94 AOSP contributor to be fixed.</p> 95 </li> 96 <li> 97 <p><em>Assigned:</em> 98 Like <em>Unassigned</em>, but the bug has been 99 actually assigned to a specific contributor to fix.</p> 100 </li> 101 </ul> 102 <p>Typically, a given bug will start in <em>Unassigned</em>, where it 103 will remain until someone intends to resolve it, at which 104 point it will enter <em>Assigned</em>. However, 105 note that this isn't a guarantee, and it's not uncommon for bugs to go from 106 <em>Unassigned</em> to one of the Resolved states.</p> 107 <p>In general, if a bug is in one of these Open states, the AOSP team has 108 recognized it as a legitimate issue, and a high-quality contribution fixing 109 that bug is likely to get accepted. However, it's impossible to guarantee a 110 fix in time for any particular release.</p> 111 112 <h2 id="no-action-issues">No-Action Issues</h2> 113 <p>This bucket contains bugs that have for one reason or another been 114 determined to not require any action.</p> 115 <ul> 116 <li> 117 <p><em>Spam:</em> 118 A kind soul sent us some delicious pork products, that we, 119 regrettably, do not want.</p> 120 </li> 121 <li> 122 <p><em>Duplicate:</em> 123 There was already an identical report in the issue tracker. Any actual 124 action will be reported on that report.</p> 125 </li> 126 <li> 127 <p><em>Unreproducible:</em> 128 An AOSP contributor attempted to reproduce the 129 behavior described, and was unable to do so. This sometimes means that the bug 130 is legitimate but simply rare or difficult to reproduce, and sometimes means 131 that the bug was fixed in a later release.</p> 132 </li> 133 <li> 134 <p><em>Obsolete:</em> 135 Similar to <em>Unreproducible,</em> but with a reasonable certainty 136 that the bug did exist in the reported version but was already fixed in 137 a later release.</p> 138 </li> 139 <li> 140 <p><em>WorkingAsIntended:</em> 141 An AOSP maintainer has determined that the 142 behavior described isn't a bug, but is the intended behavior. This state is 143 also commonly referred to as "WAI".</p> 144 </li> 145 <li> 146 <p><em>Declined:</em> 147 This is like <em>WorkingAsIntended</em>, except 148 typically used for feature requests instead of bugs. That is, an AOSP 149 maintainer has determined that the request is not going to be implemented in 150 Android.</p> 151 </li> 152 <li> 153 <p><em>NotEnoughInformation:</em> 154 The report didn't have enough information to be able to take any action.</p> 155 </li> 156 <li> 157 <p><em>UserError:</em> 158 The report was the result of a user making a mistake while using Android, 159 e.g. typing a wrong password and therefore not being able to connect to a 160 server.</p> 161 </li> 162 <li> 163 <p><em>WrongForum:</em> 164 The report cannot be handled in AOSP, typically because it is related 165 to a customized device or to an external application.</p> 166 </li> 167 <li> 168 <p><em>Question:</em> 169 Someone mistook the issue tracker for a help forum.</p> 170 </li> 171 </ul> 172 <h2 id="resolved-issues">Resolved Issues</h2> 173 <p>This bucket contains bugs that have had action taken, and are now 174 considered resolved.</p> 175 <ul> 176 <li> 177 <p><em>Released:</em> 178 This bug has been fixed, and is included in a formal release. 179 When this state is set, we try to also set a 180 property indicating which release it was fixed in.</p> 181 </li> 182 <li> 183 <p><em>FutureRelease:</em> 184 This bug has been fixed (or feature implemented) in 185 a source tree, but has not yet been included in a formal release.</p> 186 </li> 187 </ul> 188 <h1 id="other-stuff">Other Stuff</h1> 189 <p>The states and lifecycle above are how we generally try to track software. 190 However, Android contains a lot of software and gets a correspondingly large 191 number of bugs. As a result, sometimes bugs don't make it through all the 192 states in a formal progression. We do try to keep the system up to date, but 193 we tend to do so in periodic "bug sweeps" where we review the database and 194 make updates.</p> 195
