Redmine

+2

I just got bitten by this new feature - I marked 2 new bug reports as duplicates of a task in progress and closed them, only to find that the main task in progress had been automatically closed without my knowledge. Since this was a serious new bug being reported that was far from the behaviour I wanted!

The only reason I mark issues as duplicates is so that I can safely close them without offending the author, who can rest secure, knowing his problem is being worked on elsewhere. If the issues get closed together then this feature is not just not useful but dangerous and will be avoided?

Question: Is there a difference in behavior between 'duplicates' and 'duplicated by'? I never understood the distinction because duplicates implies a certain symmetry where there is no direction (unlike blocks and blocked by for example).

I agree that Redmine's handling of duplicates is less than ideal (to put it mildly).

1. Someone enters issue A.
2. Someone else enters issue B.
3. Another person marks issue B as "Duplicates A".

• If someone closes issue A, Redmine will close issue B automatically.
• If someone closes issue B, Redmine will leave issue A unchanged.
• Both issues can be separately prioritized, estimated, assigned, associated with different target versions, etc.

So, given the current implementation, the superset/most-complete issue should be considered "primary" (and "duplicated by" the other), and users should only update the primary issue, etc.

It could be argued that this is a training issue, that it is working by design, that stupid people shouldn't use software, that it's not a problem once you learn how it works, etc... but I prefer to see this as a usability issue that needs to be addressed. :)

• Relate the issue to the issue that it is said to duplicate (as it currently does).
• Consider the duplicate issue closed (by setting the status to a reserved "Duplicate" status, or whatever.

With that approach, it would be much more difficult than it is now to overlook the fact that the duplicate issue had been closed.

+1