Bugzilla 2.18 includes Windows support
Published: 17 Jan 2005 17:55 GMT
The latest version of Bugzilla, which was released on Sunday, is significantly easier to install on Windows, according to the Mozilla Organisation. This is the first update to the widely used open source bug tracking system in nearly three years.
Previous versions of Bugzilla could be run on the Windows platform, but were difficult to install due to the need to modify the source code and use advanced Windows utilities, according to the documentation for Bugzilla 2.14.5.
"Making Bugzilla work on Microsoft Windows is no picnic," says the documentation. "Support for Win32 has improved dramatically in the last few releases, but, if you choose to proceed, you should be a very skilled Windows Systems Administrator with strong troubleshooting abilities, a high tolerance for pain, and moderate perl skills. Bugzilla on NT requires hacking source code and implementing some advanced utilities."
Bugzilla 2.18 will now run unmodified on Windows, although some features, such as the Bugzilla mail interface -- that allows you to submit bugs by email -- do not yet work. The Mozilla Organization has published a guide to help users install Bugzilla on Windows.
Among some of the features that make Bugzilla more enterprise-friendly is more flexible access control. You can now create arbitrary numbers of groups, and groups of groups. A simple time-tracking feature has also been incorporated, showing how long it's taken to fix a particular bug. Another feature allows you to make some users "insiders", who are allowed to post private comments among each other that aren't seen by ordinary users. This means both public and private comments can be attached to the same bug.
Other features in Bugzilla include improved chart generating functionality and the ability to search for bugs using a Google-like bug search facility.
Bugzilla 2.18 includes over 1000 bug fixes and improvements since 2.16 and has taken over two years of work, according to the Mozilla Organization.
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