Strategic features (was Slashdot article)

[David Miller]

Tom Emerson wrote:

> Given that this is open source software, perhaps those who think
> Bugzilla should move into an expanded feature set should just fork the
> next release and move it into the direction they think is right, and
> let the community decide which one to use.

I think a better idea (what I'm planning to code into the roadmap 
shortly) is to increase the amount of places that plugins can hook into 
so that people can write and maintain plugins which add specific 
features to Bugzilla that aren't necessarily part of the core release or 
supported by mozilla.org, and don't require patches to be applied to 
actual distributed Bugzilla code for them to be able to hook in.  This 
is the direction Firefox went, too, and it works VERY well. :)

Then if someone wants a feature that we decide isn't a good fit with the 
core of Bugzilla, it can be written as a plugin and people who want it 
can download the plugin.

Once the code actually gets set up this way a little moreso than it is 
now, I'm expecting to separate some of the existing features out into 
plugins that can be removed if people don't want them instead of having 
a bazillion params to enable and disable things. :)

-- 
Dave Miller      Project Leader, Bugzilla Bug Tracking System
http://www.justdave.net/             http://www.bugzilla.org/