I found this blog entry by Sam Ruby titled Life After Bug Tracking Systems, interesting. Apparently other BTSs are frowned upon in some FOSS circles, Git for example, and it does make a point about the value proposition of BTSs in open source projects. For example if a bug has been filed in the BTS, conversations happen there and not in the mailing lists. So what’s the purpose of the mailing list if we discuss bugs in the BTS?
I’m having the same experience in PyWebKitGtk or even in WebKit. The discussions around a bug happens around that bug only, so if I’m interested in that discussion, I have to add myself to the **CC** list. Not so social isn’t it? In PyWebKitGtk, everything that happens around a bug are, luckily, forwarded to the mailing list so people in the list are aware that there’s conversation happening around specific bugs and they can add themselves to the conversation if the want to.
So how do we make BTSs social? Are BTSs really worth it? Maybe some projects don’t need it. Maybe we don’t really need it at all.
Filed under: programming, software , bts, social
