[OSM-talk] Why no link from osm.org to osmbugs.org?

[Tobias Knerr]

On 19.02.2011 19:27, Dave F. wrote:
> To me, it goes against the way OSM is meant
> to work; if you want to see modifications to OSM then do it yourselves.

Osmbugs is a bug tracker for OSM, and can be useful for the same reasons
a bug tracker can be useful for Open Source software projects:

Users will spot bugs and might report them if it's easy to do so, but
will only rarely become contributors and patch the bugs themselves. So
you at least want them to tell you about the bug. If people need to
create an account, and even learn to use some rather complex tool, they
will usually not bother and that bug will continue to exist.

You can also use the bug tracker to more manage bugs you find yourself.
Of course, you could add FIXMEs to the code/data instead, but as soon as
you want to, say, discuss the bug with others, a bug tracker item is
much more useful. This is also true for osmbugs - good luck fitting an
extended bug description or even a discussion into the 255 characters of
a FIXME value.

If I understand your objection correctly, you would prefer people to fix
the bugs themselves, in the hope that they will become addicted to OSM
while doing so? Because nothing but a significant gain of mappers could,
imo, justify the inevitable loss of useful user feedback that happens
when you do not offer an easily usable bug tracker.

Tobias Knerr