What if no devs even tried to reproduce it, and they have no reason to believe they've fixed the bug with any other changes?
That seems to be the case described in the article. In such a situation, I think it's dishonest to ask the reporter to expend even more effort when you've spent zero. Just close it if you don't want to do it, you don't have to be a jerk to your customers, too, by sending them off on a wild goose chase.
Otherwise, why not ask the reporter to reproduce the issue every single day until you choose to fix it in some unknown point in the future, and if they miss a day, it gets closed? That seems just as arbitrary.
> Otherwise, why not ask the reporter to reproduce the issue every single day until you choose to fix it in some unknown point in the future, and if they miss a day, it gets closed? That seems just as arbitrary.
Right. The problem isn’t closing the ticket, it’s pretending more work is happening than actually is.
“Needs verification” is fine if someone has actually tried to reproduce it. Otherwise it’s just a nicer way of saying “we’re not going to look at this.”
Most of the time, there isn't any reason to believe it could be fixed, i.e. there were not any non-trivial changes around that area. What you're describing happens less frequently, and in such cases, the devs should discuss that with the reporter.
In this specific example, it looks like Apple gave no indications that such changes had happened, and no indications they had even spent a nonzero amount of effort following the reproduction instructions with either the old code or the new code.
That seems to be the case described in the article. In such a situation, I think it's dishonest to ask the reporter to expend even more effort when you've spent zero. Just close it if you don't want to do it, you don't have to be a jerk to your customers, too, by sending them off on a wild goose chase.
Otherwise, why not ask the reporter to reproduce the issue every single day until you choose to fix it in some unknown point in the future, and if they miss a day, it gets closed? That seems just as arbitrary.