> a much stronger signal in how many issues are being tracked and closed
This is a strong signal, but what it signals is confused. How much of it is the nature of the user base in actually reporting issues? Suppose the project receives regular fixes and issues are promptly closed on average — how much of that is because the project has to constantly respond to external factors, and how much is due to developers doing constant fire-fighting on an intrinsically poor design and not getting around to new functionality? Suppose there are lots of outstanding issues — how many of them are effectively duplicates that nobody's bothered to close yet?
This is a strong signal, but what it signals is confused. How much of it is the nature of the user base in actually reporting issues? Suppose the project receives regular fixes and issues are promptly closed on average — how much of that is because the project has to constantly respond to external factors, and how much is due to developers doing constant fire-fighting on an intrinsically poor design and not getting around to new functionality? Suppose there are lots of outstanding issues — how many of them are effectively duplicates that nobody's bothered to close yet?