> Even for software where ‘zero bugs’ was important they’d just delete a whole bunch of bugs and see if any bounce (come back). Eventually people get sick of refilling so they get to zero but bounce by exhausting the very people eying time help them.
The open-source equivalent of this behaviour is "stale bots" that close or lock issues with no activity. Or "moving discussion to a separate tracker", with all bugs getting closed and a polite request to re-open them. Or a "locking bugs older than X months, please open a new one if still applicable".
Sure, opening it again isn't a big deal. Re-opening all bugs ever opened by all humans is just pointless work for no obvious benefit.
Having zero open issues should never be a goal, any mature project has open issues. Trying to reach zero is chasing a number that won't make a product better; it's just a number.