I've never seen a bug-tracking system in a development team, that
didn't constrain or encourage people into different and sometimes
difficult behavior, particularly when "Design Change Requests" or
"enhancements" or things that might not totally be bugs were
concerned. IOW, I don't consider the problem of fitting human
behavior in an issue tracking system to be solvable at any cost we're
willing to pay.
For that matter, the technical choices made in email constrains people
or changes their behavior in ways we hardly even notice any more.
Look at me replying all here...
Lisa
On Jun 9, 2008, at 12:05 PM, John C Klensin wrote:
Lisa,
--On Monday, 09 June, 2008 10:45 -0700 Lisa Dusseault
<lisa(_at_)osafoundation(_dot_)org> wrote:
...
The way the IETF Issue tracker works is that if you enter a
COMMENT, nobody can track whether the issue is still open, has
been resolved etc. But a DISCUSS is trackable, and in this
case trackable == blocking.
...
Just one observation about this, which is that the community has
invested huge levels of resources in administrative
restructurings, new organizations and management structures, new
secretariats, and the like over the last few years. I say
"huge" because the level of investment has been sufficient to
disrupt the main work of the IETF on a number of occasions
during the various transitions, which is a high price to pay --
probably worth it if we get good results and ROI, but
nonetheless a high price.
On the other hand, if, after all of that, the IESG is being
constrained to do unreasonable things by the tools it is using
and how those tools are organized, one has to wonder whether all
of that effort and resource investment has left us no better off
than we were before in the areas that really count.
Just a thought...
john