src/source/life-of-a-bug.jd

page.title=Life of a Bug
@jd:body

<!--
    Copyright 2013 The Android Open Source Project

    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
    you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
    You may obtain a copy of the License at

        http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    limitations under the License.
-->
<div id="qv-wrapper">
  <div id="qv">
    <h2>In this document</h2>
    <ol id="auto-toc">
    </ol>
  </div>
</div>
<p>The Android Open Source Project maintains a public issue tracker where you
can report bugs and request features for the core Android software stack.
(For details on this issue tracker, please see the
<a href="report-bugs.html">Reporting Bugs</a> page).
Reporting bugs is great (thank you!), but what happens to a bug report once
you file it? This page describes the Life of a Bug.</p>

<p>*Please note: the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) issue tracker is
intended only for bugs and feature requests related to the core Android
software stack, and is a technical tool for the Open Source community.</p>

<p>This is not a customer support forum.
You can find support for Nexus devices on
<a href="http://support.google.com/nexus">Google's Nexus support site</a>.
Support for other devices is provided by the device manufacturers or by the
carriers selling those devices.</p>

<p>Support for Google applications is through
<a href="http://support.google.com/">Google's support site</a>. Support
for 3rd-party applications is with each application's developer, e.g.
through the contact information provided on Google Play.</p>

<p>Here's the life of a bug, in a nutshell:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>A bug is filed, and has the state "New".</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>An AOSP maintainer periodically reviews and triages bugs. Bugs are
triaged into one of four "buckets": New, Open, No-Action, or Resolved.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Each bucket includes a number of states that provide more detail on the
fate of the issue.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Bugs in the "Resolved" bucket will eventually be included in a future
release of the Android software.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h1 id="bucket-details">Bucket Details</h1>
<p>Here is some additional information on each bucket, what it means, and how
it's handled.</p>
<h2 id="new-issues">New Issues</h2>
<p>New issues include bug reports that are not yet being acted upon. The two
states are:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em>New:</em>
    The bug report has not yet been triaged (that is, reviewed by an AOSP maintainer.)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>NeedsInfo:</em>
    The bug report has insufficient information to act
upon. The person who reported the bug needs to provide additional detail
before it can be triaged. If enough time passes and no new information is
provided, the bug may be closed by default, as one of the No-Action
states.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="open-issues">Open Issues</h2>
<p>This bucket contains bugs that need action, but which are still
unresolved, pending a change to the source code.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em>Unassigned:</em>
    The bug report has been recognized as an adequately
detailed report of a legitimate issue, but has not yet been assigned to an
AOSP contributor to be fixed.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Assigned:</em>
    Like <em>Unassigned</em>, but the bug has been
actually assigned to a specific contributor to fix.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Typically, a given bug will start in <em>Unassigned</em>, where it
will remain until someone intends to resolve it, at which
point it will enter <em>Assigned</em>. However,
note that this isn't a guarantee, and it's not uncommon for bugs to go from
<em>Unassigned</em> to one of the Resolved states.</p>
<p>In general, if a bug is in one of these Open states, the AOSP team has
recognized it as a legitimate issue, and a high-quality contribution fixing
that bug is likely to get accepted. However, it's impossible to guarantee a
fix in time for any particular release.</p>

<h2 id="no-action-issues">No-Action Issues</h2>
<p>This bucket contains bugs that have for one reason or another been
determined to not require any action.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em>Spam:</em> 
    A kind soul sent us some delicious pork products, that we,
regrettably, do not want.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Duplicate:</em>
    There was already an identical report in the issue tracker. Any actual
action will be reported on that report.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Unreproducible:</em>
    An AOSP contributor attempted to reproduce the
behavior described, and was unable to do so. This sometimes means that the bug
is legitimate but simply rare or difficult to reproduce, and sometimes means
that the bug was fixed in a later release.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Obsolete:</em>
    Similar to <em>Unreproducible,</em> but with a reasonable certainty
that the bug did exist in the reported version but was already fixed in
a later release.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>WorkingAsIntended:</em>
    An AOSP maintainer has determined that the
behavior described isn't a bug, but is the intended behavior. This state is
also commonly referred to as "WAI".</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Declined:</em>
    This is like <em>WorkingAsIntended</em>, except
typically used for feature requests instead of bugs. That is, an AOSP
maintainer has determined that the request is not going to be implemented in
Android.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>NotEnoughInformation:</em>
    The report didn't have enough information to be able to take any action.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>UserError:</em>
    The report was the result of a user making a mistake while using Android,
e.g. typing a wrong password and therefore not being able to connect to a
server.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>WrongForum:</em>
    The report cannot be handled in AOSP, typically because it is related
to a customized device or to an external application.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Question:</em>
    Someone mistook the issue tracker for a help forum.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="resolved-issues">Resolved Issues</h2>
<p>This bucket contains bugs that have had action taken, and are now
considered resolved.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em>Released:</em>
    This bug has been fixed, and is included in a formal release.
When this state is set, we try to also set a
property indicating which release it was fixed in.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>FutureRelease:</em>
    This bug has been fixed (or feature implemented) in
a source tree, but has not yet been included in a formal release.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h1 id="other-stuff">Other Stuff</h1>
<p>The states and lifecycle above are how we generally try to track software.
However, Android contains a lot of software and gets a correspondingly large
number of bugs. As a result, sometimes bugs don't make it through all the
states in a formal progression. We do try to keep the system up to date, but
we tend to do so in periodic "bug sweeps" where we review the database and
make updates.</p>