Mantis and BFAV

[Thomas Koenig]

Folks,
Would saying, we like the Mantis backend (e.g.  Having a db rather than
a bunch of zipped files to downloaded) but that what we miss about BFAV
is its front end (e.g. being directly in Squeak, having some of the
Squeak specific harvesting steps built in) capture the dilemma?

If that statement captures most of the dilemma about our bug and fix
tracking tools, then is a chimera a possible answer: i.e., the Mantis
backend and the BFAV GUI?  

For a composite solution to work, Mantis would need a clean
model/db/backend separation from the GUI front end.  That is an API. Is
that the case?

I'm not sure if backend vs. front-end captures the enough of the
concerns to make such an approach worthwhile.  For example, filtering
seems like a major attraction of Mantis and its not clear to me how much
of that is Mantis server versus Mantis GUI.  

And for some issues it seems to be the backend/front end preference are
flipped.  Some of what folks like about BFAV is the archive of past info
and that's certainly BFAV backend.  I suspect one thing folks didn't
like about BFAV was the instability in the BFAV interface as we moved to
different releases of Squeak and or BFAV.

As one of the maintainers of the BFAV font-end, I'd certainly be willing
to find a composite solution if we thought that would really address the
issues and was possible.  For the past months, I've assumed BFAV was on
the path to extinction so I've working on other Squeak projects.
Tom