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<chapter id="variants">
  <title>Bugzilla Variants</title>
  <note>
    <para>
      I <emphasis>know</emphasis> there are more variants than just RedHat Bugzilla out there.
      Please help me get information about them, their project status, and benefits there
      might be in using them or in using their code in main-tree Bugzilla.
    </para>
  </note>

  <section id="rhbugzilla">
    <title>Red Hat Bugzilla</title>
    <para>
      Red Hat Bugzilla is probably the most popular Bugzilla variant, aside from Mozilla Bugzilla,
      on the planet.
      One of the major benefits of Red Hat Bugzilla is the ability to work with Oracle as a
      database, as well as MySQL.
      Here's what Dave Lawrence had to say about the status of Red Hat Bugzilla,
      <blockquote>
	<literallayout>
	  Hello. I apologize that I am getting back to you so late. It has been difficult to keep
up with email this past week. I have checked out your updated documentation and I will
have to say very good work. A few notes and additions as follows.

(ed: from the FAQ)
>For the record, we are not using any template type implementation for the cosmetic changes 
>maded to Bugzilla. It is just alot of html changes in the code itself. I admit I may have 
>gotten a little carried away with it but the corporate types asked for a more standardized 
>interface to match up with other projects relating to Red Hat web sites. A lot of other web 
>based internal tools I am working on also look like Bugzilla. 


This should probably be changed since we are now in fact using Text::Template for most
of the html rendering. You actually state this later in your numbered list.

Also number 6 contradicts number 8 where number 6 would be the most up to date status
on the Oracle port.

Additional Information:
-----------------------------
1. Comments are now stored in varchar fields of 4k in size each. If the comment is more
than 4k it is broken up into chunks and given a sort number so each comment can be re
assembled in the correct order. This was done because originally I was storing the comments
in a long datatype which unfortunately cannot be indexed or joined with another table. This
cause the search of text within the long description to be disabled for a long time. That
is now working and is nto showing any noticeble performance hit that I can tell. 

2. Work is being started on internationalizing the Bugzilla source we have to allow our
Japanese customers to enter bug reports into a single bugzilla system. This will probably
be done by using the nvarchar data types supported by Oracle which allows storage of
double byte characters and also the use of the Accept-Language in the http header for 
detection by Bugilla of which language to render.

3. Of course even more cosmetic changes. It is difficult to keep up with the ever 
changing faces of www.redhat.com.

4. Some convenience enhancements in the administration utilities. And more integration
with other internal/external Red Hat web sites.

I hope this information may prove helpful for your documentation. Please contact
me if you have any more question or I can do anything else.

Regards
	</literallayout>
      </blockquote>
    </para>
  </section>
</chapter>
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