Some software companies such as Evernote, Spotify, and Google are well known to
ignore some bug reports and leave them unfixed for years. Oracle has a Java bug
report that has been open for over 10 years, despite commenters having offered
easy ways to fix it.[1]
I propose that software companies
take a pledge to deal with all reported bugs
(whether this means fixing them, declaring that they won't be fixed because
they're out of scope, or whatever) within a certain amount of time (such as a
year), and if they don't, affected customers (or even all customers) will be entitled
to get something for free (such as a year's subscription to the software/service).
This doesn't have to be an organized or centralized thing; each company can
simply publish their own pledge on their website.
This will benefit the customers because bugs will get fixed more rapidly and
reliably, and it will benefit the company by increasing their (potential) customers'
trust in them.