[Trac] Ticket Permissions

[Matthew Good]

On Thu, 2005-03-03 at 00:55 +0100, Tom Schindl wrote:
> I'm not sure and maybe I've missed something but the permissions system 
> at least for tickets is not very useful in my idea.
> What the ticket system really needs is:
> * Report => can report bugs and add comments
> * Developer => can add comments on bugs and close them (modify state)
> Have I missed something or is this not possible with trac? If it is not 
> possible I'm afraid that I can't use it in our projects because what 
> prevents me from anyone simply closing a bug?

Nothing, anyone can close a bug.  Yes, someone could close a bug they
shouldn't have, but a developer can always reopen the bug if it was
incorrectly closed.  So, there is a potential for abuse, but someone
could just as easily abuse the system by spamming it with numerous bogus
tickets.  The Trac project site is quite open to modification by the
public, and sometimes people abuse this, but someone else can always go
back and fix it.

One reason not to restrict it is there might be valid reasons for a
non-developer to close a ticket.  If I reported something, then go back
and realize it was my mistake, not a software problem, I should be able
to close the ticket.

This also gets a bit tricky if only developers can change the ticket
state, since that would prevent other users from reopening tickets.
Some people have been discussing ways to refine the workflow of Trac
specific to their business use of it, but any time you start adding in
these kind of restrictions the workflow often gets far more complicated
than you expect if you really want the software to handle all the
different scenarios.  

Preventing people from closing tickets isn't going to magically stop
abuse, or stupid uses of the system.  However, there are usually valid
reasons for people to close tickets, so I'm not sure how it would really
impact the work for the people monitoring the tickets with or without
the restriction in place.

-- 
Matthew Good <trac at matt-good.net>