PN should look at using
Bugzilla as a bug tracking database. I can immediately think of multiple reasons on how Bugzilla can immediately contribute to better PN development:
1) Users can track bugs better - Let's say I have a bug, #103 "PN doesn't bake cakes." With bugzilla I can subscribe to this bug, get an email everytime someone adds input to it, get an email when it moves from unresolved, to open, then to close, and so on. I can follow the bug through its life cycle. I know SF does this, but its comment system is not very robust IMO. It looks like a long changelog instead of a discussion that can be followed easily, with bugs and developers automagically linked.
2) Users can vote for favorite bugs, to give developers a better idea of what the users need.
3) Dependency - I can look at bug #103 and see that its dependant on bugs #102 and #101, so I can track those as well. This beats "Anyone know when PN will bake cakes?" on #postnuke every 20 minutes ... :)
4) Most Frequent Bugs - I can pull up a list of the "top ten bugs" that plague PN, and track them. Same with most recent duplicate bugs. New developers can look at the list and see the places where the current developers could use help.
5) Keywords - Imagine if you could just query every bug with [users] and have all user.php related bugs come up.
6) Milestone Tracking - I select .7.1, and see which bugs are scheduled to be finished by that date. Then I can roughly tell when a new release is near.
This is a short list at the top of my head. I'm sure sourceforge has some of its functionality, if not all, but bugzilla is commonplace in the open source world (mozilla, red hat, ximian, gnome) and once you learn it its hard NOT to use it. This also gives us non-coders a chance to learn the structure of PN and let us help the developers triage bugs.
Some of the other mozilla webtools might also be a good idea. If you look at
this page, you'll see all the CVS commits by the mozilla project in the past 24 hours ... all the code is cross referenced and broken down by developer. AWESOME!
I think a system like this for PN would have tremendous benefits, and since PN has seen such growth in the past month, IMO now is the time to get bugzilla off the ground, especially considering sourceforge's uncertain future. As with most PN users, I have no technical skill in setting something like this up, but I will cheer from the sideline. :)
As I crawl into my flameproof suit, please add comments, I'm anxious to see what other users and especially developers think.