Strategic features (was Slashdot article)

[Gervase Markham]

Vlad Dascalu wrote:
>> I don't think it's necessary a given that because "the competition" 
>> has a feature, we need to have it.
> 
> That's elementary. The list includes my personal selection of features 
> that I nominated as strategic. Doesn't mean that you have to agree with 
> me or something like that.

Sure :-)

>> Also, "the competition" is a very nebulous concept. Do you mean 
>> Scarab? Mantis? JIRA? RT? All of the above? I doubt they all have all 
>> of the features you list.
> 
> JIRA mainly, since that seems to be number #2, on a tie with Mantis 
> eventually.

I was going to say that JIRA is not direct competition because it's 
payware, but looking I see that it's free for Open Source projects. Good 
marketing move. However, it's certainly not free software. So people 
with principles won't use it.

> I don't think any of the features I mentioned places us in a different 
> ecosystem compared to the current one. Most of those are valid features 
> for an enterprise level bug tracking system.

Indeed not; I was just addressing your generality. :-) I didn't want it 
established as a /de facto/ valid reason for adding something.

With the possible exception of custom fields (which I've talked about 
before, and am prepared to accept Dave's ruling) I agree that all those 
features would make valuable additions.

Gerv