On the Democratic Operation of Bugzilla

[Rob Cozens]

Garrett, Dan, Jim, et al:

>  I can understand setting priorities depending on the severity of the 
> bug, but having the users rate and vote?  I thought I was purchasing a 
> product, not getting married to a second wife!  Bugzilla seems like it 
> relies far too much on the users and not enough on the company.  Users 
> should not have to do such things, especially after spending this much 
> money on the product.  It's almost absurd, more so if just because a 
> bug is not rated hight or voted on by anyone else, then is that to say 
> that it may get completely ignored?
>

What is the world coming to when users complain when the company that 
provides them a product gives them input in determining where resources 
should be spent on maintaining and updating that product?

Runtime Revolution Ltd. gives every user of its product an opportunity 
to influence the decision on how limited R&D and Support resources are 
allocated.  I doubt that you can name many other products you use whose 
manufacturer give you that same opportunity.

Is there some better means of making that determination than asking the 
people who use the product?  Market survey? Ouija Board?

Especially a product like RunRev, which appeals to such a broad range 
of uses and users.  Given the documented errors and enhancement 
requests, how does one decide where to focus time and resources.  If 
each RR user complied a personal bug fix/enhancement request list, to 
what degree would those lists overlap?  How many users would prefer my 
list to yours, and vice versa?

If you were in charge of RR development, wouldn't you like to spend 
your resources on areas of relatively high importance to a relatively 
large proportion of users?  How do you ascertain that without asking 
users?

Jim begins "I don't use Bug or Revzilla." and ends "Bugzilla is not 
useful for me."  Dan writes "I'd be all for making Bugzilla far more 
useful. I even have some ideas
for how to do that. But frankly that's up to RunRev, not the
community,"

I see it the other way around.  RR has offered its user community an 
opportunity to influence resource allocation and bug tracking; but it 
can't work without the participation of that user community.

Rob Cozens
CCW, Serendipity Software Company

"And I, which was two fooles, do so grow three;
Who are a little wise, the best fooles bee."

from "The Triple Foole" by John Donne (1572-1631)