intertwingly

Avery Pennarun: The git developers don’t track bugs. If you find a bug, you can write about it on the mailing list. You might get flamed. And then probably someone will ask you to fix it yourself and send in a patch.  This is unlike almost all other open source projects.

Sometimes ideas take time to percolate.  When I first saw Avery’s post, it didn’t quite sink in.

When I started playing with hg, I noticed that I was applying a different style of development than I previously had done.  One that I felt more comfortable with.  And I thought again about Avery’s post.

And when I came across Chad Wooley’s comment: But using your SCM as a messaging platform?  Come on, that’s taking the social networking thing too far...  I pray that I never see the official Twitter channel for an open source project I care about, because I ain’t going there...; I once again thought about Avery’s post.

It now occurs to me that not all projects need bug tracking systems.  In fact, for some projects, not having a bug tracking system may very well be a feature.  In particular, if the bug tracking system on your project is the place where feedback goes to die, you might be better served not having one.  But if you do decide to go this way, you would be well served to consider one of the various DVCS systems out there, like bzr, hg, and git.