I've been thinking a bit more about JIRA usage. I would characterize my beef with long-running JIRAs under two headings: project management and practical coding issues.
I have a fairly visceral reaction to large numbers of open JIRAs. My first reaction is that a giant list of them is, ipso facto, evidence of a dysfunctional project (ASF or otherwise). In some respects, this is pretty funny, since at my day job we endeavour to use Agile/Scrum, and a giant pile of open JIRAS (a/k/a the backlog) is absolutely par for the course. I did manage to get myself publicly chewed out by a 'certified Agile expert' for my lack of ideological purity. A compromise that appeals to me is to try to be very disciplined at keeping track of the JIRAs that are *defects*, and, if possible, even arrange for the front-page view of the project to highlight the open defects and open issues chosen for the upcoming release rather that the total open JIRAs. As for the practical issues, I've already elaborated them in the discussion of how to have maturing patches be in source control instead of (or in addition to), so I won't repeat (much).
