[Asterisk-Dev] Features requests on bugs.digium.com

[Darren Nickerson]

"Josh Roberson" <twisted at indigent-networks.com> wrote:

> If someone would like to volunteer to develop a system where we can better 
> track feature patches and feature requests, feel free to do so, and drop 
> us a line, and we'll see what we can do to get this implimented.

Josh,

In my experience, feature requests are a natural component of any bug 
tracking effort, and something every software product being written via a 
collaborative development model will face. I've been involved intimately in 
several such projects, have looked closely at a myriad of others, and I 
think the approach being advocated by you and bkw (and possibly the majority 
of the current bug marshals) stands way outside of the norm. I think the 
aggressive closing of bugs, and rejection of feature requests has already 
had an impact on Asterisk, and will hinder it significantly in the long run.

Don't get hung up on the word 'bug'. Think of them as issues. It's entirely 
normal to have a large list of open issues in any actively maintained 
product ... some of them will be heart-stoppingly nasty bugs that must be 
fixed, and at the other end of the spectrum there will be "nice-to-haves" 
that would make Asterisk better if someone would only implement them (aka 
feature requests). If mantis doesn't help you easily distinguish them from 
each other, then I think someone should consider better isssue tracking 
software (or better configuration of the current one). The goal of having 
zero open items in Mantis should be abandoned IMHO, ... it's not appropriate 
or reasonable to expect anyone to do that with a maturing software product. 
Perhaps it was reasonable back when all the issues were show-stoppers, but 
Asterisk has come a long way since then.

I think Olle recently suggested that there's a way to tag things as feature 
requests in Mantis, which would seem to make this whole thing a non-issue. 
If feature requests can be identified as such, then anyone looking for a 
rainy day coding project can find them and become a hero, and those of you 
who are more focused on fixing true bugs can exclude feature requests from 
your searches.

-Darren