Which unresolved bugs block a release?

[John Poelstra]

Jesse Keating said the following on 03/21/2007 08:04 PM Pacific Time:
> On Wednesday 21 March 2007 22:51:39 John Poelstra wrote:
>> 4) How are bugs from previous releases considered in the planning process?
> 
> They aren't really, officially.  We try to fix the big glaring ones 
> immediately after the release to prevent them from happening again the next 
> time.  Some previous "blockers" are moved to the next blocker set to be 
> reviewed later.
> 
> Unlike with RHEL, there is no real good management of the blocker/target bugs 
> for Fedora.
> 
> 

Has the project discussed or determined how we will:
1) Close out the approximately 7,000+ open bugs?
2) Handle future releases in a way that the backlog doesn't get so high?

Having tried to report more bugs myself recently, I wondered to myself if some people are not motivated to file bugs because they have the perception that nothing happens when they do?  Naturally I'm not trying to increase the *quantity* of open bugs we have, but I wonder if with more volume we would see higher *quality* issues?

Perhaps a better question to ask is if other bug reporters have the feeling that bugs they file will be addressed in one way or another (acknowledged, fixed, CLOSED_WONT_FIX, etc.)?

Not wanting to place too much weight on a "number"... 7,000+ bugs jumped out at me as possibly raising this question, but I'd love to hear what other people think.  I readily acknowledge that the manpower needed to address these bugs is a completely different (complex) matter and maybe it has already been discussed (thus questions #1 and #2 above).

Thanks,
John