Our issue tracker -- a plea

["C. Michael Pilato" <cm...@collab.net>]

Lately, I've been concerned that we as a community have forgotten how
powerful a collaboration tool our issue tracker is.  This is my earnest
request for all of us to return our tracker to a more central position in
our day-to-day routines.

Now, we've been doing a little better lately about our milestone management,
using "1.7.0" for release blockers, "1.7-consider" for nice-to-haves, etc.
(I'd like to codify that in our Community Guide if it's not already done and
nobody objects.)

But the one area that I've noticed especially lacking -- and it's actually
caused me some problems personally -- is in issue assignment.  There at 12
1.7.0 issues open right now.  'gstein' owns one, and I own one.  The other
10 are assigned to the default issues@ address.  Is it really the case that
none of these 10 issues is being worked on right now?  Maybe so, but because
of our collective inattention to proper tracker usage over the past
[LONG_PERIOD_OF_TIME], you'd never know one way or another.  Twice in recent
weeks I've tried to attack an open issue only to find that others are
already sitting on solutions.  That's a waste of my -- and by extension --
the community's time.

I know that "process" can sometimes be seen as an pointless hindrance to
"progress", but I humbly ask that we all at least consider making the most
of all of our collaborative tools.  Thanks.

-- 
C. Michael Pilato <cm...@collab.net>
CollabNet   <>   www.collab.net   <>   Distributed Development On Demand