| | 1 | = Q: This ticket was opened 10 years ago... |
| | 2 | |
| | 3 | - ... and you're still haven't implemented this feature / fixed this bug! |
| | 4 | - ... are you ever going to do finish it one day? |
| | 5 | |
| | 6 | == (short) A: PatchWelcome! |
| | 7 | |
| | 8 | Trac is a collaborative software development effort, and like with any such project, ideas and contributors come and go, but the software lives on as long as it's used and maintained; if some bug / feature doesn't appear to be worked on, anyone's free to take it up where others have left and finish the job, or propose an alternative: PatchWelcome! |
| | 9 | |
| | 10 | == (long) A: |
| | 11 | |
| | 12 | Well, in practice a patch is not enough, even if it meets the appropriateness and quality criteria enumerated in the PatchWelcome page: you need to have a committer to approve it and integrate it in the code base. Depending on the up and downs of the project live cycle and the time available in the hands of the maintainers, this can sometimes slow down the adopting of new features (consider that added code will most of the time only //add// to the maintenance burden). There's an easy solution to this: be not only a contributor, but become a maintainer as well! |
| | 13 | |
| | 14 | This clarifications enables me to finish by discussing briefly some of the //properties// of these "long run" tickets, and explain why we still keep them opened: |
| | 15 | - milestone ''next-minor-releases'': fix worthy of being integrated in a maintenance release; no promise made as ''when'' |
| | 16 | - milestone ''next-major-releases'': enhancement that fit in the long term vision we had for Trac; still no promise relative as to ''when'' this might happen |
| | 17 | - milestone ''unscheduled'': neither really fits nor is completely at odds with the long term goals; it's more a matter of having a future ''maintainer'' willing to go in this direction |
| | 18 | - closed as ''wontfix'': only when we deem the proposal is a bad idea and doesn't fit in what we're trying to propose (or if a [TracPlugins plugin] would be more appropriate) |
| | 19 | |
| | 20 | See also TracTicketTriage#Milestone and TracTicketTriage#StatusandResolution. |
| | 21 | |
| | 22 | And as a parting word, such long standing tickets really //may// get done at some point, see {32} (!TODO) vs. {33} (!DONE) ;-) |
