2004 Feb 06 | The Politics of Bug/Issue Tracking Software?

I've noted that a common source of disagreement and even exit within open source communities is the handling of software bugs. In my experiences in the open standards communities the ways in which issues are represented with respect to their standing of consensus or dissension is affected by the processes, culture, and media of discourse (e.g. bugzilla, IRC, e-mail, Wiki, etc.).

Consequently, I'm interested in the extent to which communications media, issue tracking and bug tracking software reflect cultural values of how a community should come to agreement, or even to productively disagree. For example, culturally, can a developer close a bug report simply because he does not think it is of a priority? Technically, does the software permit the developer to specify an appropriate status for an issue, or reassign it to a more appropriate owner?

Can you point me to examples of disputes arising over the categorization or responsibility of bugs? The implementation of new tools, categories, or processes that are hoped to mitigate such problems? If so, please let me know! (Click on the text above and send me an email or leave a comment on my blog)