OpenUru.org

Mantis was installed here before there was a Foundry. Once the Foundry came online, Mantis was adopted under the umbrella of the Foundry resource although it is hosted on the OpenUru.org server and not by Foundry. We did some integration between the Mantis database and Foundry.

Mantis has not been used for just over four years because rarified's Foundry service with Atlassian tools and Jenkins CI is vastly superior - it doesn't even compare. The Mantis instance has been retained for anyone who wanted a very simple bug tracker, or just in case Foundry disappeared. I find the Mantis management and UI confusing anyway and would rather do something else if we did anything as an alternative to JIRA.

Mantis development is still active. It has a steady trend of commits.

So I could upgrade to the current version, or I could eliminate a maintenance item that no one uses. But if I eliminate it, it's a self-fulfilling prophesy; no one can use what isn't there. Also, if I can't easily integrate our revised site navigation system with Mantis - something that unfortunately never has gotten attention - I might kill it anyway.

Thoughts?

If it’s a maintenance burden and nobody uses it, kill it (after properly archiving the data, of course). It can always be reinstated or replaced later when someone finds a use for it. If you make that clear enough to potential users, the prophesy needn’t be that self-fulfilling.

As someone who uses Mantis in his daily professional life and finds JIRA somewhat complicated, I don’t necessarily agree with your judgement, but that doesn’t matter.

Who was using it anyway? I seem to remember the Guild of Maintainers? If so, although the guild is pretty much dormant as far as I can tell, maybe a post on their forum would be in order to direct anyone who might still be interested over here.

Yes, I was thinking that it might be an idea to make the enquiry more directly to the past users, who might have data saved there. As it is, they might have no particular reason to be checking this forum.

I echo the sentiment that JIRA is confusingly backwards and slow.

Okay, but what's your suggestion for Mantis?

I have posted at the Guild of Maintainers, as suggested, but I have a feeling it will get as much attention at Mantis itself.
http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/Forum ... 465#p16465

If removed, I do like the idea of the message that "it can always be reinstated or replaced later when someone finds a use for it" if there is a serious and committed request that makes it worthwhile. I could put a web page up on its subdomain - bugs.openuru.org - saying as much. The existing database can also stay in place.

I don't know how Mantis is put together, but is it possible for individual projects to be archived separately? Then the respective owners could take away their own "part" and re-host it as appropriate if they need it. However, I suspect everything in there is "ancient history" now (and the dates getting set to the Linux epoch by the 1.2.0 update around late 2010 doesn't help make the data useful).

By the way, I have not looked into how easy or hard it is to skin Mantis with a site header like ours. That is part of the equation. I am assuming, based upon my experience with phpBB and MediaWiki, that it is non-trivial. And I'm assuming I would need to do the research. If I didn't have to do that, or if it is ridiculously easy, it might make a difference to going through with an upgrade and re-skin even if no one uses it. The ease of regular upgrades to stay current is a primary constraint.

JWPlatt wrote:I have posted at the Guild of Maintainers, as suggested, but I have a feeling it will get as much attention at Mantis itself.
http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/Forum ... 465#p16465

I would tend to agree with that assessment. I ideally wish that we used Mantis instead of Jira--mostly because of the personal frustrations vented above, but that's probably not an option. The best option is probably to do as you say and archive Mantis with the option to bring it back in the future. I tend to get rid of things that see little activity when I'm making decisions.

And here I just submitted new projects.

Yeah, I would probably shut it down as well and move everything to one place instead of. . . what looks to be four bugtrackers or some bs. Mantis I can access and I have some projects on. JIRA it would seem I have and account but my browser screams that I'm not connecting securely when I try and go to Jira. In Mantis, at least, everything is very confusing. Half the features dont' seem to work, and I only jsut now realize I had no categories set up so no one could post bug reports on my projects. . .

So yeah, if you all still think we need a bug tracker, I suggest we get one and properly set it up.

See my note in the Jira cleanup topic. I will be moving Mantis records to Jira soon. As well as trying (hard!) to simplify the Jira web interface.

_R