Where's my feature or bugfix?

Sometimes users report bugs or request features, but the bug doesn't get fixed or the feature doesn't get implemented. This article aims to explain why that is, and what you can do about it.

Thank you

First, thank you for your report or request. Bug reports and feature requests often take a lot of work to prepare, and that effort is always appreciated. Even if your effort doesn't bear fruit immediately, it can serve as important information for future work.

OmegaT is a volunteer effort

OmegaT is developed entirely by volunteers. There is no source of funding (beyond donations), no overarching roadmap or game plan, and no plans to put any such things in place. All work on OmegaT is done at the whim of those willing and capable of contributing.

Why was my feature or bug report ignored?

There are many reasons a feature request or bug report might not get attention:

• Contributors are busy with work/life/other projects
• Contributors didn’t think it was a high priority
• The request is particularly difficult or complex
• Any number of other reasons

But it’s easy!

Unless you have significant Java programming experience and detailed knowledge of the internals of OmegaT, you are unfortunately not in a position to make that judgment. It is notoriously difficult to estimate the effort required to change software systems, even for experts. Even just producing an estimate can require hours of work.

But it’s important!

While it may be important to you, it may not be as important to others.

What can I do about it?

There a few approaches you can take:

Convince someone to prioritize your issue

The best way to do this is with money. If you are interested in sponsoring a development, you can:

• Start a thread on the OmegaT user group. This way, you can check what other users think about your feature. Costs can also be mitigated significantly if you can find others willing to chip in.
• Contact info [at] omegat [dot] org to discuss your feature in detail and get a quote.

Do it yourself

One of the benefits of OmegaT being open-source is that you have the right to modify it and share those modifications with others. All the tools needed to modify OmegaT are available for free on all major platforms, so the only costs to you are time and energy.

“But I don’t know how!” you say. Well, there are numerous resources available online for beginners. You can also get advice from the omegat-development mailing list.