> It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, et

> It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc) Having worked for Mozilla for 5 years (Zack also is a former Mozillian), I actually don't think that the root problem is the ease of use of the bug tracker. Although bugzilla sucks, we still managed to get a ton of bug reports from external folks. But getting the bug report is only the first step. Once you have it, you need to, at a minimum: a) Figure out what part of the software is causing this bug. For complex software like a browser, figuring this out often requires deep technical knowledge of the system, so is expensive time. b) Figure out if the bug is already known. This is again often nontrivial because one bug can manifest in ways that may look superficially dissimilar, so requires an expensive person's time. c) Collect additional information from the reporter. Most bug reports from muggles don't have enough information to let you reproduce the issue without additional back-and-forth. Since the bug reporter probably doesn't live in bugzilla like Mozilla folks do, they're usually slow to respond, if they respond at all. I've had bugs I worked on a week only to have the original reporter disappear. It's understandable; all this communication takes a lot of work. d) Reproduce the bug. If you can't reproduce, go to (c). e) If it's a regression, figure out when the bug was introduced. f) Figure out if the bug is fixed in alpha/beta/nightly builds. This is all before you actually try to write any code. Every step here is more difficult and risky when the reporter isn't a known entity, so as a result, if Zack or I file a bug against Firefox, all things being equal we're much more likely to be paid attention to than if a random person files a bug. It's just a basic cost-benefit analysis on the part of people who already have too much to do. I'd say that 80% of bugs I fixed while I worked on Firefox were identified by Mozillians (either employees or regular contributors). Which isn't to say that the remaining 20% weren't important -- they were, which is why I fixed them! But those 20% were a lot harder and riskier to fix, and that's not something I can imagine the best bug tracking software in the world ameliorating.