Migration to SourceForge tracker?

[SebA]

Seeing as we are now using subversion (yay!), and moving to a more
de-centralised development model, maybe it's time (or after the project
namechange anyway) to start using the SourceForge bug and feature-request
tracker?  (Or another tracker.)  This would enable all the developers and
users to track the outstanding bugs instead of just Henrik.  I've noticed in
the past that Henrik is very quick at fixing the critical bugs and core
dumps (thanks), but other less critical ones (in trunk) seem to be
outstanding for many months.  Having a public bug tracker would:
(a) enable users to contribute to bugs via confirmation of the bug,
narrowing down of the cause(s) / scenarios, testing of patches, etc.
(b) ensure bugs (and feature requests) don't get forgotten about;
(c) more easily allow other developers to create patches;
(d) facilitate the release process by being able to see what might need
fixing / doing / adding before the next release;  (I believe 4.3.0 is about
a year overdue, but unfortunately trunk still isn't stable
)
(e) increase the acceptance of Hobbit by users / companies, as it would
increase the signs of life of the project (if used properly), the signs of
support (in terms of bug fixing), etc.
(f) encourage people posting bugs that someone who might fix their bug might
(eventually) see their bug post! ;)

In terms of the stability of hobbit, if new features are going to be added,
isn't it time we branched 4.3 off from trunk?  (So we don't add new bugs to
the 4.3 branch and further delay the release.  Or has this already been
done?)  Personally, I would have liked this to have happened this time last
year after Henrik announced 4.3.0 was nearly ready, instead of adding new
features since then.  What would have happened, I suppose, is the current
trunk would have developped into 4.4.0.  (If someone particularly wanted a
specific new feature from trunk in 4.3, they could backport the patch.  This
would be facilitated if patches were uploaded to the bug tracker for these
new features when, or preferably before (thereby increasing the stability of
trunk by allowing testing of the patch first), checking in to trunk.)  I
expect nearly everyone knows an open-source project that works like this,
but Asterisk is one that works well in this way, with hundreds of people
submitting patches to their customised Mantis bug tracker.

Kind regards,

SebA 
 
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