Shameless plug warning. I'm the author of git-bug (https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug), a distributed bug tracker act

Shameless plug warning. I'm the author of git-bug (https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug), a distributed bug tracker actively developed (even a gsoc this summer!). If you are interested by this topic I would very much like you to give it a try or even contribute. git-bug try to improve over the previous iteration of this idea in several ways. To answer your question, those are what I think prevented them to catch on: - it doesn't pollute your project: no files are added alongside your code, no mess during a merge, bugs are stored in your repository but decoupled from your code workflow - it doesn't impose an interface: as you prefer, you can use the CLI tools, the interactive terminal interface or even a webUI. You could also integrate it to your editor, CI system ... - it allows outsider of the project, client, users ... to browse and open bugs, without asking them to install anything. Admittedly, git-bug is not there yet, but the goal is to have the webUI work as a public portal that a project could host easily, accepting authentication from outside system (github OAuth ...).