Title:  Issue Management
Notice:    Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
           or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
           distributed with this work for additional information
           regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
           to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
           "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
           with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
           .
             http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
           .
           Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
           software distributed under the License is distributed on an
           "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
           KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
           specific language governing permissions and limitations
           under the License.

All issues are tracked and managed in the Apache JIRA instance ([https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/rave](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/rave)).  Please follow the guidelines below when creating issues for Apache Rave in JIRA.

####Issue Management Guidelines
  * Use the proper issue type
    
    The Apache JIRA instance defines many types of issues.  To keep issue management as simple as possible, the Apache Rave community uses a small subset of the available types.  When creating a new issue, please select from the following list the type of issue that best describes the scope and size of the issue:
    
    * *Epic*
      
        An Epic represents a large set of features that support the same end goal.  For instance, building a new widget provider would best be represented by an Epic as there are multiple features that must be developed in order to reach the goal.

    * *Story* 

        A story represents a single feature that may or may not support an epic.  As a rule of thumb, a single developer should be able to complete a story within 1-2 weeks.  

    * *Sub-task*

        Sub-tasks represent the implementation details for a specific story.  These are the development, documentation and testing tasks that must be completed for the feature represented by the story to be functional.

    * *Bug*
    
        A bug represents any defect with the software that causes it to behave in unexpected or incorrect ways.

  * Create links between issues
    
    Linking issues is important to provide traceability and overall reduction in management complexity for the issue tracker.  Links connect two different issues with a meaningful relationship.  You may use any of the available links when connecting two issues together. 

    NOTE:  There is no explicity Epic/Story relationship built into JIRA.  If you are creating a story that supports an epic you must relate it via the "is part of" link.  

  * Look for similar issues before creating a new one

    Often, there is an existing issue that is similar to the one that you are creating.  Before creating a new issue, look for a similar one and either update it to reflect additional usages/error conditions.  

  * Assign the correct component

    As Apache Rave becomes more complex, a correctly assigned component will assist the team in identifying and resolving issues.

  * Assign tasks

    If you are going to be working on an issue, first assign it to yourself so that no one else in the community begins working on it at the same time.