[Ardour-Users] new bug/feature tracker features

[John Emmas]

Hi Paul,

One drawback in using the existing mantis DB is that it doesn't
(currently) distinguish between feature requests and feature proposals.
Therefore any dev who wants to set a non-zero value for a particular feature
would need to be very conscientious if he wanted to track down all the
relevant requests.  I can definitely envisage this being very offputting (in
fact there aren't any non-zero cost fields at present, as far as I can see).

However you implement it, my instinct is that there needs to be some central
location where Ardour users (and devs) can easily view the current proposals
without needing to trawl through dozens (possibly even hundreds) of feature
requests.  One possible solution might be to add a new category....  as well
as bugs, features, documentation etc, maybe there could be a "feature
proposal" category.  And perhaps (at the top of the "Ideas for Ardour"
forum) there could be a sticky, with links to the currently proposed
features.

Another suggestion I'd like to offer is that any developer who puts forward
a proposal should be able to set a minimum sponsorship amount as well as a
cost.  For example, if 1,000 users all pledged a small amount (say $5) by
the time Paypal has taken its cut and the developer's bank have had their
cut, the poor old developer might be left with a lot less than he'd
expected.  Apart from that, if a feature's realistically worth $40, no-one's
going to pledge $40 if everyone else is only pledging $5.

Just some thoughts,

John


----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Davis" <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com>
To: "John Emmas" <johne53 at tiscali.co.uk>
Cc: <ardour-users at lists.ardour.org>
Sent: 12 July 2008 17:05
Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] new bug/feature tracker features


>
> On Sat, 2008-07-12 at 08:56 +0000, John Emmas wrote:
> > Has anyone formed any opinions about introducing a dedicated Mantis
system
> > for feature proposals? - (see below)
>
> john, i think i've decided that i don't really want a separate mantis
> system for that. i upgraded mantis, and added a new custom field "Cost".
> if this field is non-zero, it means that something has been accepted as
> a feature proposal. new mantis comes with a "support" field, which
> allows mantis users to promise to pay for a given feature.
>
> these two things make it possible to do custom views on the DB to find:
>
>     a) anything with non-zero support pledges
>     b) anything with non-zero cost fields
>     c) the intersection of the two
>
> i haven't made these custom views easily available yet, though anyone
> could create their own. now that the dust of 2.5 has settled, website
> infrastructure will be one of my (five) areas of focus for a few weeks.
>
> --p
>
>
>
>