Re: [HACKERS] Collaboration Tool Proposal

On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 09:16:38PM +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>
> In terms of improving the hosting infrastructure, this would surely be a
> step forward, but the problem with "collaboration" is not that the
> tools are missing, it's that people are unwilling to use any tools for
> issue tracking, etc.  This is in fact a near-universal problem.  If you
> look at sourceforge, very few projects actually use any of the
> "collaboration" tools.  If you want to get the project to do something,
> you still have to use email and CVS.  And with those projects (not
> necessarily on sourceforge) that have a sophisticated bug tracking
> structure, the sheer number of filed bugs is so large and irregular in
> quality that the bugs are in fact meaningless.  (Oddly enough, the
> projects I have in mind here do *not* use a full-service collaboration
> tool, just a bug tracker.  Make of that what you will.)  So yes, I
> think this is a reasonable plan, just don't expect "collaboration" to
> suddenly appear out of nowhere.

One thing that helps a lot in my experience is the ability to manage bug
reports.  On gborg, for instance, I'm stuck with several dozen duplicates
from a time there were technical problems with the site; lots of "semantic
garbage" in the form of people making silly assumptions, not reading
earlier bug reports, or asking generic C++ questions; requests for features
that are already there; support requests and other irrelevant issues; and
multiple reports covering the same underlying problem.

If I could merge, delete, categorize & group these requests the list would
be a lot easier to manage.


Jeroen