[Exist-development] bugtracker housecleaning

[James F. <jam...@ex...>]

Hello All,

After discussing with Wolfgang et al and to prepare for upcoming
releases (I have no timings on releases, this is just preliminary
work) I will be marking bugs from 2009 and earlier as 'out of date'
and then will be 'closing' them in a few weeks or so.

All developers 'own' the bug list and if a bug that has been marked
'out of date'  is important to you then mark its resolution
appropriately (accepted/fixed/etc...). If you are a user and see that
a bug report you submitted has been marked 'out of date' speak up and
we will switch it to appropriate resolution.

All bug reports are valuable but as time moves on and a bug remains on
the list a few things happen:

* architecture changes with successive releases, sometimes meaning the
bug is not relevant anymore (sometimes this even results in the bug
being fixed!)

* if the bug has been around for a few years (as many have been) then
it is either too hard too fix or not so critical for the mass of users
... this may not be the case, especially if one has spent a lot of
time and effort contributing a patch or identifying bug, which is why
I ask for developers and users to respond appropriately if they see a
bug that is near/dear to them to switch resolution

* some bugs may have actually been fixed but waiting on confirmation,
this is a 'nudge' towards getting people to confirm

Why are we doing this ?

* general house cleaning e.g. we can't let this list continue to grow
ad infinitum with actively managing it

* focus resources on current issues to be more responsive to end user demands

* to be more flexible when new potential developers submit patches and
bug reports ... instead of making them wait

* remember switching to 'out of date' does not mean we lose bug
information ever (nor closing them)

Thanks once again to all our bug submitters who have provided patches
and reports in the past ... its had a real positive effect on eXist
stability and operation and we hope by doing this 'housecleaning' that
your future reports will be responded to more quickly by making sure
we actively manage the bug list more from here on out.

James Fuller