Joel Spolsky refused to add a "blame" field to FogBugz for years, he used this as an example of how you should not give the customers every feature they demand,

Joel Spolsky refused to add a "blame" field to FogBugz for years, he used this as an example of how you should not give the customers every feature they demand, and he said it was one of the top most requested features. He explained that once you add that field it will be the end of fixing bugs and making honest bug reports. Developers will work with QA so that bugs don't get entered into the system. Long arguments will ensue about whose fault a bug really is, and massive time will be wasted on this. One of the jobs of a software designer is to construct a tool that encourages good ways of working and not dysfunctional ones. New features need to be evaluated with this in mind. Eventually though after he turned over project management of the software to the employees, they responded to the constant bug reports about the lack of this feature and added the ability to have this field. I recall he made a note about it on his blog, but that the project belonged to them and it wasn't his project to micromanage, so now they have the feature whether he likes it or not. Caution: I probably have half the details wrong, I'll try to find some links. Update: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20020912.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20020912.html