A probably incomplete list of distributed BTS software.
Using Version Control
These store the bugs in a version control system (VCS), along with the software that has the bugs. This allows bugs to be closed when a commit is made, and in some cases allows bug status to follow branches and merges.
These are distributed in the sense that the VCS is often a distributed VCS; the VCS is used as the transport.
- Artemis (Mercurial extension)
- Artifacts for Web (Subversion, web UI in pure javascript)
- Bugs Everywhere (Git, Bazaar, Mercurial, RCS, Arch)
- cil (Command-line issue tracker with some git integration for closing bugs on commit)
- dbug
- DisTract (Monotone)
- DITrack (Subversion; mentions that it should be possible to port it to a distributed version control system, but their use of numbers does not allow it without some redesign.)
- Ditz (VCS agnostic)
- Fossil (a version control system with integrated bug tracker)
- Git Issues (Git)
- git-case (Git) by bartman
- ikiwiki (wiki uses VCS; bugs are plain pages)
- milli (VCS agnostic)
- Scmbug (glues together VCS and other bug tracking software, such as Bugzilla)
- Stick (git)
- TicGit / TicGit-NG / TicGit.net (Git)
- Zoho BugTracker
TODO: Compare and contrast how the data is stored in version control, how bug states are merged, etc.
Multi-BTS (data replicating) Systems
These systems allow bugs to be tracked in multiple (non-distributed) BTSs, synchronising state between them.
- Simple Defects (SD) (built on top of the Prophet disconnected replicated database; can pull/push to RT, Hiveminder, Trac, GitHub, and Google Code issue trackers)
Multi-BTS (non-replicating) Systems
Systems in this list don't actually replicate state and history between different systems, they just provide linkage between systems.
- The CVE ID system creates essentially a distributed BTS, with each vendor's BTS using CVE IDs to link back to the central problem definition, which in turn links to other affected systems that use the same CVE ID. It is limited to security holes, and an essential difficulty is ensuring that CVEs are both unique and well-specified.
- RDF profiles of bugs integrated into the BTS (either by content negociation or by inclusion like with RDFa) can help "tag" bugs at different places with same standard properties from compatible ontologies. URI of bugs are then their IDs and eventually resolve to canonical URLs of these in a master bugtracker. Bugs can become part of LinkedOpenData.