Live streaming LibreOffice bug triaging – your experiences (part 2)

LibreOffice’s QA (Quality Assurance) community helps to identify and fix bugs in the software. Every week, Ilmari Lauhakangas from The Document Foundation (the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice) live-streams bug triaging sessions, so that others can see how he works on bug reports, and ask him questions.

Last week, we talked to Tammy Lawson and “bunk3m” about their experiences with the live streams. Today, let’s hear from two more participants!

First up is Andy Hengst:

I joined a long time ago (a year?) and was probably invited by Ilmari to one of his triage sessions, or to an intro video call meeting with him – I don’t remember. I’m embarrassed to say I have not been active in triaging, but that should change! I feel like I have everything I need. Without live-triage, that would probably not be true. I attend sessions sporadically when my wake-up time matches your “afternoon” sessions. Having worked in IT for decades* but never really seriously using any cool tools like Linux, Git, or virtualization, I found watching Ilmari do bug triage to be a really interesting general learning experience as well.

For someone like me I think a play-by-play of one or two bug triages could have been helpful – more focus on tools and tricks, less on what makes great triage. I took recordings of a few sessions (for personal use!) so this is an idea in my mind to do.

I enjoy the relaxed and focused approach. No politics, no chit chat, just triage. Nothing to get upset about 😄 I don’t know if this is personal style or Good European Work Ethic – stuff just gets done. I used spreadsheets for many years, so another side-benefit of watching Ilmari work is to see features that I generally never use or know about.

*retired, with plans to learn. Sudden lack of structure is a challenge.

Then we talked to sockseight:

I learnt about the streams using the community mailer, and I find the spontaneity in triaging the bugs very enthralling. The highlight: for those bugs which we find it difficult to test, Ilmari is kind enough to accommodate requests for such bug retests. This would be a great learning experience in many ways – different ways to understand the issue, nuances about the product, the next steps for that bug, whom to report about what needs to be looked into, it goes on and on…

Many thanks to Tammy, bunk3m, Andy and sockseight for taking part! Everyone is welcome to join our QA community and help keep LibreOffice rock-solid for all users.