Bug/Issue Tracking: Does it have politics?
http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/culture/bug-tracking
I've noted that a common source of disagreement and even exit within open
source communities is the handling of software bugs. In my experiences in
the open standards communities the ways in which issues are represented
with respect to their standing of consensus or dissension is affected by
the processes, culture, and media of discourse (e.g. bugzilla, IRC, e-mail,
Wiki, etc.).
Consequently, I'm interested in the extent to which communications media,
issue tracking and bug tracking software reflect cultural values of how a
community should come to agreement, or even to productively disagree. For
example, culturally, can a developer close a bug report simply because he
does not think it is of a priority? Technically, does the software permit
the developer to specify an appropriate status for an issue, or reassign it
to a more appropriate owner?
Can you point me to examples of disputes arising over the categorization or
responsibility of bugs? The implementation of new tools, categories, or
processes that are hoped to mitigate such problems? If so, please let me
know!
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