From: Paul Louden <paulthenerd_at_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:55:04 -0500

alex wallis wrote:
> Hi list, i'm guessing this topic has probably been discussed on list
> before, so sorry if i'm going over old ground.
> However i'm just wondering, seeing as the list gets e mails from the
> tracker about bug reports and patches on the tracker, why isn't a
> similar e mail also sent at the same time about feature requests?
> As I understand it, the reason for introducing the e mails of the bug
> reports and patches on the patch tracker was introduced to make devs
> lives easier, so they could keep up to date with tracker activity and
> wouldn't forget about bugs or patches. So surely it would be a good
> thing if feature requests were also e mailed along regularly as well.
Bug reports represent work done incorrectly, or work done that has
broken something. Basically, something that is the fault of developers
and needs resolving. Patches represent work done by someone else, so in
many cases it's just a matter of developer review and decision making.

Feature requests, on the other hand, represent work entirely undone and
often special case or undesired by many developers. In general, feature
requests will be considered much, much, much lower priority than bugs
and patches. Reminders for Bugs/Patches are like saying "C'mon guys, we
really should be doing something about these." You can't really say that
in the same tone about feature requests, they really just don't matter
in the same way.
Received on 2008-06-21