Bug tracking is a communication issue

Not a 'keeping track' issue.

We have this strange belief that if only the bug was written down 
somewhere it has a better chance of being fixed. The only thing writing 
it down does is, um, writing it down.

KDE has a huge bug database filled with a huge number of bugs. Some 
valid, many duplicates, many wishes, a large number too old and possibly 
fixed but who knows.

The best way to ruin anyone's desire to help and contribute to free 
software (imho) is to assign them to bug triage. My joints hurt thinking 
about it. There are rare people with the mix of personality traits that 
love bug triage and are very good at it. A bronze bust must be made of 
each one. No sane person would do it for nothing :) There are probably 
fewer people with these gifts than there are software developers.

So we have a situation where it is easier to harness the manpower to 
write a bug database than it is to maintain the content within.

Someone told me of an executive that would clear his desk on friday 
evening into the garbage can. His theory was that if something was very 
important it would show up again the next week. I think bugs fall into 
that category. And we wouldn't have to maintain the fiction of people 
caring about reported bugs.

Providing a way of communicating with the developer at a data rate that 
they can handle would seem more productive.

Derek