Analysis of Bug Report Qualities with Fixing Time using a Bayesian Network

Most client software employs a bug-tracking system, which utilizes user-submitted reports (bug reports) that contain information necessary for software developers to fix bugs. The quality of bug reports drastically differs. Bug reports can include severity, priority, and associated issues determined by researching the addressed bug. Herein we investigate the influence of bug report qualities on successfully fixing a bug and estimating the fixing time. We also examine the claim in previous studies that bias and differences in the treatment of bug reports exist due to broad expertness among the reporters. Our approach examines the relationship between the qualities within the bug-fixing cycle and modeling graphical causal dependencies through a Bayesian Network. Bug reports with attachments, dependencies on another bug, and frequent discussions are more likely to be fixed. In addition, bug reports with a high severity tend to be fixed faster. Moreover, the difficulty of the bug itself may influence the fixing rate such that a straightforward bug will be fixed easier and faster regardless of the bug report quality.