Coping With an Open Bug Repository

Overview

Most open source software development projects include an open bug repository - one to which users of the software can gain full access - that is used to report and track problems with, and potential enhancements to, the software system. Despite the rise in use of open bug repositories, there is little data about what is stored inside these repositories and how they are used. This paper provides an initial characterization of two open bug repositories from the Eclipse and Firefox projects describe the duplicate bug and bug triage problems that arise with these open bug repositories, and discuss how the authors are applying machine learning technology to help automate these processes.