Hi,
Hu? I don't quite get it. Communicating via email is an unscalable inconvenience? So, if I asked you to create an account with my todo tracker instead, would that be more scalable and convenient? Using everyone's software of choice instead of my own most certainly is neither scalable nor convenient for me at all.
I think you're missing the point here. First of all, your bug report isn't the only bug report. If all bug reports were posted here rather than reported in our bug tracker, it would definitely be more likely that some bugs would get lost. It works for small projects with a low influx of bug reports, but it's less convenient for larger projects. This is the scalability factor.
Did you actually read the email you are replying to completely? If you did, you should know what I think a solution that's scalable and convenient for both sides would look like, and that it does not consist of you filtering bug reports from the mailing lists, so why are you arguing against a position that I obviously don't hold?
Second of all, convenience. Your convenience, while of course a consideration, isn't the primary concern. The convenience of the developers is. You're reporting one bug, but the developers here have to keep track of, and fix, hundreds (and that's on top of new features, support for new platforms, test cases, and performance improvements).
What do you suppose I do all day long? I get up, report a bug to you, and then twiddle my thumbs for the rest of the day? Believe it or not, but reporting bugs to you and helping with the debugging isn't the only thing I do either.
So, what your argument boils down to is, if I may paraphrase, "our time is more valuable than your time, therefore, you should waste your time so we don't have to waste ours" (ignoring the fact that you actually wouldn't have to). I must say, I am not convinced.
If we were asking for support for software you develop, you'd obviously be the one to set the rules (and yes, that includes your TODO tracker,
That's not actually how that works. While I am obviously free to set any rules I like as to how I engage with people, those don't actually compel anyone to obey them. Rather, people who have bugs to report are just as free to set any rules they like as to how to engage with people, including people they report bugs to. If the two sets of rules are not compatible, the bug simply won't get reported/fixed.
closed forums or what not). Reporting bugs in a bug tracking system isn't exactly a novelty. Rather the opposite.
As mentioned above, I explained in the email that you replied to that I don't object to bug tracking systems, so that's kindof a straw man. But also, against someone pointing out "That's inefficient and a bit unfair because <...>!", "But that's how we've always done it!" isn't really a useful argument, is it?
Regards, Florian