[Qgis-psc] Changing our default response to requests/bugs?

[Nyall Dawson]

Hi PSC,

Just wanted to raise something which has been on my mind lately.
Whenever someone asks a feature request or reports a bug via the
mailing lists our default response is along the lines "Please report
this at hub.qgis.org".

However... we receive an (estimated) average of 4-5 new tickets on hub
a day, and we're lucky if in a good week we see maybe 2 or 3 bug
tickets fixed and maybe a feature request ticket closed once a
fortnight. As a consequence the number of tickets is continually
growing, and at the current rate there's no chance we'll ever get this
under control.

I personally find the "open a ticket" response too passive. It shifts
responsibility back to the QGIS project to fix these tickets. I'd like
us to revise our default response so that the responsibility for
FIXING/IMPLEMENTING the ticket is left in the hands of the original
reporter - implying that it's up to them to put the work/funds in to
get the ticket closed, NOT some magical process which occurs just
because they've filed the ticket.

Here's the kind of response I think we should use:

"Thanks for reporting this. I've confirmed that this is a bug/missing
feature which should be addressed in QGIS. There's a couple of ways
you can make this happen:

1. If you've got development skills - dive into the source code and
make the change! You'll find the QGIS team is very open to new
contributors and will readily lend a hand if you need assistance
navigating the source or for advise on the best way to make these
changes. Just ask!

2. Sponsor a developer to make the change for you! Contact one of the
companies listed on
https://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/commercial_support.html who
offer QGIS development and ask for a quote/proposal for the changes.

3. If option 2 isn't practical for you, you could organise your own
crowd-funding campaign to distribute the costs of the development.
Checking with local QGIS user groups or opening a thread on the user
mailing list to see if there's others who would like to contribute to
the fix is a great place to start.

QGIS is a community driven project, so it's up to you how you want to
proceed to get this bug fixed/feature implemented.

If you've got any questions, just ask... we're a friendly team!"

This response clearly puts the responsibility BACK to the reporter
that they need to do the work to get things into QGIS, and that filing
a ticket alone is not sufficient.

What do you think? I think a similar but tweaked response could also
be used when people use the "SOMEONE should fund this!" line...
basically to push it back to them and say "well, if it's valuable to
you, then YOU should fund this!" (not some anonymous benefactor!).

Nyall