All the years I’ve been involved with MySQL server I dreamed about fixing all the bugs. Some people can live with bugs, I just can’t. I don’t feel good extending the code, while knowing that the crap that’s in it is not wed out first. I hate magnifying existing buggy code when coding with new features.

But I’m not "in charge". I can’t hire a dozen more engineers, I can’t sanction their training, can’t change the roadmap etc., etc.

And all incarnations of management MySQL had through 4 major releases and two acquisitions couldn’t tackle this beast either.

So I was wondering… Could there be some sort of bugfixing fund? From engineering POV, fixing a single bug costs from $1000 to $20 000. We have about 2000 open bugs against the product. Most of them are minor. Some serious. Let’s assume 10% cost $20k/each (based on required man-hours), 10% - $10k/each. Let’s assume there is 5 to 10% inflow every month. Let’s assume there is a 50% regression rate. Then, basically, getting the problem down to 100 bugs is just $10 000 000 to 20 000 000.

Now, does anybody care? And if yes, where to find the money?