[Ardour-Users] new bug/feature tracker features

[Paul Davis]

Mantis, the system we use for tracking bugs & feature requests for
Ardour, was upgrade this evening (to version 1.2.0a). One of the reasons
for this are the new "sponsorship" features built into it. 

If you visit the bug tracker:

http://tracker.ardour.org/view_all_bug_page.php 

you will see that all bug reports now come with a "Cost" and "US$"
field. By default, and to recognize the support from the existing
sponsorship program, all bugs and features will default to a zero cost -
that is, you should expect to see things fixed/added without explicit
support for the issue at hand.

However, because (as I was worried might happen), one of my major
commercial sponsors pulled funding, you should expect to see several
feature requests get marked up with a cost over the next few weeks and
months. 

At present, the "bug sponsorship" is an honor system: you sign up with a
"promise" to pay a certain number of US$ (a good deal for most of the
world right now!), and the bug/feature system tracks all such pledges.
Then, once the feature is implemented, people who pledged to support it
will hopefully pay up (via any mechanism that works for them). 

Mantis doesn't currently offer any mechanism to track actual payments
associated with a bug or feature, and it may be hard to do in practice.
It may be that if we can figure out the technology, this may change a
little at some point in time, so that we can show actual payments and/or
move to an escrow-like system.

The system will be open to developers other than myself - I certainly
don't intend to claim credit for work that someone else does. If you see
a feature you'd be willing (seriously willing) to implement for a fee,
please make sure you have "developer" status in Mantis, and adjust the
"Cost" field for the bug by clicking on its "Update Issue" button in the
main bug report form. 

Please let me know if there any problem arising from the Mantis upgrade
and any thoughts anybody has on this system.

thanks to everyone who works on, uses, supports and spreads the word
about Ardour,

--p